Date of Award
4-27-2023
Document Type
Thesis
Department
Psychology
First Advisor
Kristjen B. Lundberg
Abstract
The current U.S. criminal justice system has a disproportionate number of people suffering from mental illness. Additionally, many of these prisons not only lack the ability to properly treat these individuals, but in some cases may even worsen the problem. Public support, and importantly whom the public thinks the prototypical prisoner is, is important to know when advocating for reform. This research aims to investigate whether or not racialized perceptions of the U.S. criminal justice system impact support for mental healthcare reform in prisons. Given the exploratory nature of this work, potentially relevant individual difference variables are also investigated. An online sample of White-identifying U.S. adults (N = 374) reported high levels of support for mental healthcare reform in prisons, which was unaffected by perceived racial composition of the prison population. Individual difference measures, including empathy for and dehumanization of prisoners, were found to be correlated with levels of support. Implications for researchers and advocates are discussed. Additionally, this paper offers an important psychological investigation of people’s perceptions of the rehabilitative, as opposed to the punitive, nature of the U.S.’s criminal justice system.
Recommended Citation
Brassil, Jared, "Justifying Antipathy?: Examining Racialized Perceptions of Incarceration and Support for Mental Healthcare in Prisons" (2023). Honors Theses. 1671.
https://scholarship.richmond.edu/honors-theses/1671
Included in
Cognition and Perception Commons, Community Psychology Commons, Health Psychology Commons, Human Factors Psychology Commons, Industrial and Organizational Psychology Commons, Personality and Social Contexts Commons