Abstract

Those studying criminal justice at the undergraduate level are an important bellwether for understanding future reform efforts. If students are unwilling to acknowledge systemic issues needing reform, this suggests that reform efforts are likely to face internal opposition. The current study examines the extent to which criminal justice students acknowledge that systemic racial issues present a need for criminal justice reform. Using survey data from students at a single university, the findings reveal that students are willing to acknowledge the existence of systemic racism, although expected individual-level factors predicted variation in such acknowledgment. In addition, the current study explores the relationship between willingness to acknowledge systemic issues and general punitive attitudes. Consistent with the extant research, criminal justice students’ racialized attitudes are significantly related to more punitive crime-control preferences. These findings have implications for understanding efforts to reform criminal justice, and they raise essential questions for criminal justice educators.

摘要

那些在本科阶段学习刑事司法的人是理解未来改革努力的重要领头羊。如果学生不愿意承认需要改革的系统性问题，这表明改革努力可能会面临内部反对。目前的研究考察了刑事司法学生在多大程度上承认系统性种族问题需要进行刑事司法改革。使用来自一所大学学生的调查数据，调查结果表明学生愿意承认系统性种族主义的存在，尽管预期的个人层面因素预测了这种承认的变化。此外，目前的研究探讨了承认系统性问题的意愿与一般惩罚态度之间的关系。与现有研究一致，刑事司法学生的种族化态度与更具惩罚性的犯罪控制偏好显着相关。这些发现对理解刑事司法改革的努力具有重要意义，并为刑事司法教育者提出了基本问题。