How do people react to policy reform? Group cues and persuasion in criminal justice

Abstract

Criminal justice policy reform is crucial for a nation grappling with public safety concerns and decades of mass incarceration, which increased racial disparities. In this article, I develop a theory of cognitive relatedness between race and criminal justice to explain why people support different policy responses to crime. This study investigates the factors shaping public attitudes toward criminal justice policy reform, focusing on dispositional racial attitudes and political and racial group cues. Employing a conjoint design and a follow-up survey experiment, I demonstrate that people’s dispositions toward racial and political groups affect their criminal justice policy preferences. Both people of color and White respondents follow cues from Black voters, with racial attitudes playing an important moderating role. Furthermore, I find little evidence for an influence of partisan cues on support for reform. These findings have fundamental implications for political activists and their efforts to support criminal justice reform campaigns.