Journal of Criminal Justice 30 (2002) 89 – 100

Public views toward crime and correctional policies

Is there a gender gap?
Brandon K. Applegatea,*, Francis T. Cullenb, Bonnie S. Fisherb
a
Department of Criminal Justice and Legal Studies, University of Central Florida, Post Office Box 161600, 311 HPA, Orlando,
FL 32816-1600, USA
b
Division of Criminal Justice, University of Cincinnati, 600 Dyer Hall, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0389, USA

Abstract

Differences between men and women in their proximity to crime, moral development, and attitudes toward an
array of social issues suggest that a gender gap in crime views may exist. Investigations of this possibility,
however, are in short supply. Using a statewide data set and a variety of global and specific questions about crime
policy, punishment, and rehabilitation, this study found that men and women tend to hold moderately divergent
views. Women tend to express greater support for offender treatment and less support for punishment than men.
Implications of these results for the future of correctional and crime policy are discussed. D 2002 Elsevier
Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction research on crime opinions. Gender simply has not

For more than six decades, political scientists have
devoted considerable attention to differences between
men and women in policy preferences and voting
behavior. Even greater efforts have been made to
understand gender differences since the 1980 pres-
idential election. In fact, it has become commonplace
to refer to a ‘‘gender gap’’ in citizens’ candidate
choices and preferences for social policies (Borquez,
Goldenberg, & Kahn, 1988). Substantially less atten-
tion has been focused on possible differences between
men’s and women’s views on crime and corrections.
Despite salient theoretical perspectives that might be
applied, only a few studies have explored male –
female differences in crime attitudes. This is not to
say that gender has been completely absent from
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-407-823-3739; fax:
+1-407-823-5360.
E-mail address: bapplega@mail.ucf.edu
(B.K. Applegate).
been a focal issue in most examinations of attitudes
toward crime policies, punishment, and offender
rehabilitation. This study sought to provide greater
insight into gender differences by investigating, in a
single analysis, men’s and women’s views across
several aspects of crime policy and correctional policy.
Gender and crime views
Theoretical perspectives
It is somewhat surprising that criminologists have
not devoted more attention to assessing whether a
gender gap exists in crime views. As noted above, the
existence of a gender gap is well established in a wide
variety of other areas. Women are more supportive of
social welfare, equal rights for homosexuals (Petersen
& Donnenwerth, 1998), equal opportunities for
women (Petersen & Donnenwerth, 1998; Studlar,
McAllister, & Hayes, 1998), and education, and they

0047-2352/02/$ – see front matter D 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 0 4 7 - 2 3 5 2 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 1 2 7 - 1
90 B.K. Applegate et al. / Journal of Criminal Justice 30 (2002) 89–100
are more concerned about healthcare and about
protecting the environment (Shapiro & Mahajan,
1986; Steger & Witt, 1989). As Shapiro and Mahajan
(1986) report, women also tend to oppose issues
involving force or violence (e.g., national defense,
military presence outside the United States, and the
death penalty), oppose abortion, and support com-
passionate policies for disadvantaged groups (e.g.,
African Americans, the poor, and the elderly). Fur-
thermore, since the 1980 presidential election, Amer-
ican women consistently have voted for Democratic
candidates more often than have men. In a recent
analysis of gender differences in voting, Studlar et al.
(1998) found that the largest gap since 1964 was in
1992, when the percentage of women voting Democrat
was ten percentage points higher than the percentage
of men voting Democrat. The researchers’ empirical
examination of possible explanations for this differ-
ence revealed that men’s and women’s voting was
indistinguishable once their views on several political
issues were considered. Thus, women’s voting patterns
were different from men’s because of gender differ-
ences in attitudes toward defense spending, spending
on poverty, women’s equality, abortion, and the death
penalty (Studlar et al., 1998).
The divide between men and women on these
social and political issues might be expected to spur
criminologists to investigate gender differences in
crime views. Taken together, the findings on wom-
en’s views suggest that women, compared to men, are
more compassionate and more concerned about the
well-being of others, especially the socially disadvan-
taged. If these orientations also extend to attitudes
toward offenders, greater support for rehabilitation
and less support for punishment might also be ex-
pected among women.
Gilligan’s (1982) propositions about moral differ-
ences between men and women suggest similar expect-
ations about gender differences in crime attitudes.
Gilligan (1977, 1982) proposes a theory of differential
moral reasoning in which she argues that, although
men base their decisions about right and wrong on an
‘‘ethic of justice,’’ women’s morality has a different
foundation. Women do not emphasize individual rights
and fairness. Instead, their moral decisions are based
on ‘‘sensitivity to the needs of others and the assump-
tion of responsibility for taking care’’ (Gilligan, 1982,
p. 16). This ‘‘ethic of care’’ springs from an under-
standing of the interconnectedness of human relation-
ships and a desire to minimize harm to oneself, to
others, and to the relationships between individuals.
This position predicts a particular pattern of men’s
and women’s attitudes toward crime policies. To the
extent that people believe that rehabilitation helps
offenders become more productive citizens and pro-
tects future victims, an ethic of care would predict
greater support for offender treatment among women.
Similarly, a concern with alleviating harm would
logically lead women to oppose capital punishment;
obviously, the death penalty irreversibly harms the
person being executed. Predictions about gender
differences in support for other types of punishment,
however, are less clear. Women may favor greater
punitiveness in an effort to deter or incapacitate
criminals, if this might be seen as a means of
protecting potential victims. Deterrence and inca-
pacitation, however, inherently visit harm on the
offender. An alternative prediction stemming from
Gilligan’s (1982) theory of ‘‘different voices,’’ there-
fore, seems more likely. Women who are in Gilligan’s
(1977) second stage of moral reasoning emphasize
self-sacrifice in the pursuit of care and protection, and
those at the third and highest stage act on a principle
of nonviolence. Seeking to minimize harm, women
might be oriented toward lesser punitiveness, instead
preferring preventative crime policies that build
stronger families and communities.
The aspects of the gender gap discussed thus far
suggest that women would be less punitive and more
supportive of preventative and rehabilitative ap-
proaches to crime. A third consideration, however,
paints a different picture: proximity to crime. Miller,
Rossi, and Simpson (1986) suggest that diverse social
groupings may hold different views about punish-
ment because of their proximity to crime and to
criminal justice practices. Differentiating objective
proximity from subjective proximity, these authors
contend that objective proximity to crime refers to
‘‘the empirically determined probabilities of the
occurrence of activities, events, or situations in which
crime is implicated’’ (Miller et al., 1986, p. 316). Men
and women, therefore, may disagree in their attitudes
about crime because of their differential likelihood of
offending, being victimized, being arrested, and so
on. Miller et al. (1986, p. 316) use subjective prox-
imity to crime to mean ‘‘the perceived probabilities of
the same experiences.’’ Gender differences in atti-
tudes may be based on such considerations as fear of
crime or perceived likelihood of arrest.
Regarding prior victimization as an indicator of
objective proximity, the existing literature is largely
consistent. Those who have been victimized by crime
are no more punitive than those who have not been
victimized (Blumstein & Cohen, 1980; McCorkle,
1993; Ouimet & Coyle, 1991; Stinchcombe et al.,
1980; Tyler & Weber, 1982; cf. Keil & Vito, 1991).
Victimization also appears to have no significant
influence on support for rehabilitation (Cullen, Clark,
Cullen, & Mathers, 1985; Langworthy & Whitehead,
1986; McCorkle, 1993).
In the realm of subjective proximity to crime, the
empirical evidence on the relationship between fear
 B.K. Applegate et al. / Journal of Criminal Justice 30 (2002) 89–100
of crime and attitudes toward crime is mixed. The
weight of the evidence, however, seems to favor fear
as a significant predictor of correctional attitudes.
Several researchers have failed to uncover a relation-
ship between fear and punitive crime views (Barkan
& Cohn, 1994; Kelley & Braithwaite, 1990; Ouimet
& Coyle, 1991). Furthermore, McCorkle (1993)
found an insignificant relationship between fear and
support for rehabilitation. Other scholars, however,
have reported that fear of crime is significantly
related to greater support for capital punishment (Keil
& Vito, 1991; Tyler & Weber, 1982), increased
harshness in preferred sentences (Hough & Moxon,
1988), and greater punitiveness (McCorkle, 1993).
Langworthy and Whitehead (1986) also explored fear
as an influence on citizens’ choices between punish-
ment and teaching as the main purpose of prisons.
Their findings revealed that respondents who were
more afraid of crime were less likely to state that the
purpose of prisons is ‘‘to teach them [prisoners] to be
law-abiding citizens’’ (Langworthy & Whitehead,
1986, p. 580).
The fear of crime literature, therefore, suggests a
gender gap in crime views. The direction of the
relationship between gender and attitudes toward
criminal justice policies, however, is opposite what
is predicted by the literature on other social and
political issues and Gilligan’s (1977, 1982) moral
development theory. A consistent finding in the fear
of crime literature is that women tend to be more
fearful of victimization than men (Ferraro, 1995;
Langworthy & Whitehead, 1986; Sprott, 1999). Thus,
crime fear suggests greater punitiveness and less
support for rehabilitation among women than men.
Empirical evidence of a gender gap
The empirical research on attitudes toward pun-
ishment and rehabilitation sheds little light on the
extent and nature of a gender gap. Although several
studies of preferences for punishments and attitudes
toward rehabilitation have included sex as an inde-
pendent variable, only a few authors have paid
particular attention to gender issues. Moreover, most
of these studies examined only a limited set of
criminal justice attitudes. For all issues except capital
punishment, the results are quite equivocal.
The evidence on support for capital punishment is
fairly clear. Almost invariably, researchers have
reported that women are less favorable toward the
death penalty than men (Barkan & Cohn, 1994;
Bohm, 1991; Farnworth, Bennett, & West, 1996;
Grasmick, Cochran, Bursik, & Kimpel, 1993; Halim
& Stiles, 2001; Keil & Vito, 1991; Kelley &
Braithwaite, 1990; Sandys & McGarrell, 1995; Skov-
ron, Scott, & Cullen, 1989; Zeisel & Gallup, 1989; cf.
91
Applegate, Wright, Cullen, & Dunaway, 1993; Tyler &
Weber, 1982). For example, in a particularly detailed
investigation of gender and attitudes toward capital
punishment, Whitehead and Blankenship (2000)
found that 80 percent of men stated that they favored
the death penalty, compared to only 65 percent of the
women in their sample. Furthermore, a larger percent-
age of women (26 percent) than men (12 percent)
indicated a preference that murderers be sentenced to a
full life term in prison rather than execution. Men and
women also differed in the reasons that they gave for
their support or opposition, and women who initially
favored the death penalty were more willing to change
their position in the face of empirical evidence (White-
head & Blankenship, 2000).
The research on men’s and women’s views of
capital punishment not withstanding, the evidence for
a gender gap in other areas of crime attitudes is rather
inconsistent. Some research shows that gender is
unrelated to support for rehabilitation (Haghighi &
Lopez, 1998; Hurwitz & Smithey, 1998; Johnson,
1994; McCorkle, 1993; Reichel & Gauthier, 1990;
Warr & Stafford, 1984). Other investigations reveal
that women’s and men’s views toward correctional
treatment are significantly different, with women
reporting more favorable attitudes (Cullen et al.,
1985; Cullen, Golden, & Cullen, 1983; Haghighi &
Lopez, 1998; Langworthy & Whitehead, 1986). Fur-
thermore, several studies of punitive opinions show
that men are less punitive than women (Cohn, Bar-
kan, & Halteman, 1991; Farnworth et al., 1996;
Haghighi & Lopez, 1998; Hurwitz & Smithey,
1998; Kelley & Braithwaite, 1990; McCorkle,
1993; Miller et al., 1986; Samuel & Moulds, 1986;
Thomas, Cage, & Foster, 1976). Evidence also exists,
however, showing that men are more punitive than
women (Blumstein & Cohen, 1980; Grasmick &
McGill, 1994; Sprott, 1999), or that there is no
relationship between gender and punitiveness (Apple-
gate, Cullen, Link, Richards, & Lanza-Kaduce, 1996;
Applegate, Cullen, Turner, & Sundt, 1996; Grasmick
et al., 1993; Grasmick, Davenport, Chamlin, & Bur-
sik, 1992; Halim & Stiles, 2001; Hurwitz & Smithey,
1998; Osborne & Rappaport, 1985; Ouimet & Coyle,
1991; Singh & Jayewardene, 1978; Sprott, 1999;
Taylor & Kleinke, 1992).
The existing research, therefore, suggests that
women are less likely to support the death penalty
than men. It also indicates that women may be more
supportive of rehabilitation than men, or men’s and
women’s views may not differ significantly. Further-
more, women may be less punitive than men, more
punitive than men, or may hold nearly the same
attitudes as men toward punishment. Some of these
differences might be explained by the way crime
attitudes were measured. Sprott (1999), for example,
92 B.K. Applegate et al. / Journal of Criminal Justice 30 (2002) 89–100
recently showed that among a sample of Canadians,
the type of question asked affected the relationship
between gender and punitiveness. In response to a
global question about whether the courts are harsh
enough in sentencing offenders, men and women did
not differ significantly in a multivariate analysis. In
contrast, women were significantly less punitive than
men when they were asked to sentence a specific
juvenile offender.
Research strategy
The present study sought to explore whether ques-
tion type matters by asking a variety of different types
of questions about citizens’ views toward crime policy,
punishment, and rehabilitation within a single study.
Drawing on the theoretical and empirical discussion
above, it was expected that compared to men, women
would be more supportive of rehabilitation, more
supportive of liberal approaches to crime, and more
supportive of conservative approaches to crime. It was
also predicted that women would hold less favorable
attitudes toward capital punishment. Regarding other
forms of punishment, the existing literature provides
more ambiguous guidance, but it was hypothesized
that women would be less punitive than men when
they were asked to consider a specific offender and
more punitive when asked about general policies.
Methodology
Sample
For this study, Survey Sampling Inc. provided a
random sample of 1000 Ohio residents. Question-
naires were mailed to each member of the sample
following Dillman’s (1978) total design method. The
first mailing was distributed in May 1996. Reminder
letters were mailed one, three, and seven weeks later.
Completed questionnaires were returned by 559
respondents. In addition, 105 questionnaires were
returned unanswered because the intended respondent
could not be located, had moved out of the state, was
too ill to complete the survey, or was deceased. The
resulting response rate for those members of the
sample who received a questionnaire and were cap-
able of completing it was 64.4 percent (559/895).
Based on comparisons with data from the 1990
census, it appears that the sample overrepresents men
(66.7 percent), Whites (92.4 percent), people who are
older (mean = 53.5 years), people who have a college
education (27.9 percent), and people with higher
household incomes (median = US$35,000 – 49,000)
(U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1994). Prior research
indicates that older respondents, White respondents,
and those with higher incomes tend to be more
punitive and less supportive of rehabilitation; those
who are more educated, on the other hand, tend to
favor treatment. Although the effects of these variables
on attitudes typically are slight, the existing research
suggests that the sample might overestimate punitive-
ness and underestimate support for rehabilitation.
The predominance of White respondents in the
sample also restricted the ability to explore possible
interactions between race and gender. The existing
research is equivocal on whether race and gender
interact in predicting crime views. On the one hand,
Miller et al. (1986) report that Black women, on
average, preferred harsher sentences than Black men,
White women, or White men for a variety of crimes.
On the other hand, Haghighi and Lopez (1998) found
that non-White males and females were consistently
less harsh in their views on parole and sentencing
policies than White males and females. Similarly,
Halim and Stiles (2001) failed to find any significant
race – gender interactions in public preferences for
capital punishment or for harsher courts. Due to the
limited number of minorities in the present sample,
stable estimates of interactions are not possible.1
Thus, this study was unable to offer evidence that
might resolve this issue.
Dependent variables
Support for rehabilitation and punishment
Attitudes toward offender treatment and punish-
ment were assessed several ways. First, attitudes
toward offender treatment were measured by a com-
posite index of ten statements about rehabilitation
(Rehabilitation Policy Index). Examples of the indi-
vidual items included ‘‘It is a good idea to provide
treatment for offenders who are in prison’’ and ‘‘It is
important to try to rehabilitate juveniles who have
committed crimes and are now in the correctional
system.’’ The respondents assigned each state-
ment one of six points on a Likert scale that ranged
from disagree strongly (coded 1) to agree strongly
(coded 6). For each respondent, the individual scores
were summed and divided by the number of items
answered, producing an index of the mean of valid
responses (Cronbach’s a = 0.90). Higher index scores
indicated more favorable views toward the rehabilita-
tion of offenders.2
As a second measure of attitudes toward offender
treatment, the respondents were presented with a
vignette and asked for their reactions to the hypothet-
ical offender described. Each respondent read one
vignette that described a specific offender – age, race,
sex – and several aspects of his or her situation – cri-
minal history, drug use, employment history, current
offense, sentence, and type of rehabilitation program.
 B.K. Applegate et al. / Journal of Criminal Justice 30 (2002) 89–100
The scenarios were constructed as factorial survey
vignettes (Rossi & Nock, 1982). Thus, each of the
attributes was randomly varied in the vignettes. The
following is an example of the vignettes provided:
Gary, a thirty year old White male threatened a
victim with a weapon and demanded money. The
victim gave him US$10 and was not harmed. After
being convicted for this crime, the court discovered
that Gary had been employed off and on for several
years, and did not use drugs. His prior record showed
that he had been convicted once before for a crime in
which he drove a car while drunk and caused a
traffic accident. No one was seriously hurt.
For his current offense, Gary was sentenced to
probation, where he will continue to live in the
community but must meet with a probation officer
once per month. As a part of his sentence, Gary is in
a rehabilitation program. He is enrolled in a psycho-
logical treatment program that teaches offenders to
give up criminal values and encourages good behav-
ior through a system of rewards and punishments.
Following the vignettes, the respondents were
asked to rate each of five statements regarding
treatment (e.g., ‘‘I support the use of rehabilitation
with Lisa/Gary’’) on the same six-point Likert scale
described above. A single mean response index
(Vignette Rehabilitation Index) was created, with
higher scores indicating more favorable attitudes
toward rehabilitation (Cronbach’s a = 0.87).
The survey also replicated a question previously
included in several polls conducted by Louis Harris
and Associates (see Cullen, Skovron, Scott, & Bur-
ton, 1990; Hindelang, Dunn, Aumick, & Sutton,
1975, p. 218; McGarrell & Flanagan, 1985, p. 233;
Sundt, Cullen, & Applegate, Turner, 1998):
Now what do you think should be the main emphasis
in most prisons — punishing the individual convicted
of a crime, trying to rehabilitate the individual so
that he might return to society as a productive
citizen, or protecting society from future crimes he
might commit?
The respondents were instructed to choose one
main goal from these possibilities: ‘‘punish,’’ ‘‘rehab-
ilitate,’’ ‘‘protect society,’’ and ‘‘not sure.’’
An additional set of questions allowed for the
possibility that the respondents would prefer that
prisons pursue more than one goal (Thomson &
Ragona, 1987; Warr & Stafford, 1984). To assess
men’s and women’s support for each goal of prisons,
the survey asked them to indicate the importance of
each of the goals mentioned in the previous question.
The respondents rated each goal as very important
(coded 4), important (coded 3), a little important
(coded 2), or not important (coded 1). In the tables
that follow, these items are identified as ‘‘Importance
93
of Rehabilitation Goal,’’ ‘‘Importance of Protection
Goal,’’ and ‘‘Importance of Punishment Goal.’’
Attitudes toward punishment also were assessed
by obtaining each respondent’s position on the death
penalty (Capital Punishment). The respondents were
asked whether they favored, opposed, or had no
opinion on capital punishment: ‘‘Are you in favor
of the death penalty for a person convicted of
murder?’’ This question replicates one used in pre-
vious national polls by the Gallup Organization (see
Warr, 1995). In logistic regression analysis reported
below, the respondents who favored capital punish-
ment were coded 1 and those who were unsupportive
or had no opinion were coded 0.
An additional item, which replicates a question
used since the early 1970s in the U.S. General Social
Survey (Smith, 1998), sought the respondents’ atti-
tudes toward their local courts: ‘‘In general, do you
think the courts in this area deal too harshly or not
harshly enough with criminals?’’ The respondents
chose ‘‘too harshly,’’ ‘‘about right,’’ or ‘‘not harshly
enough.’’ For the logit analyses, a dummy variable
was created for Court Harshness with those who
responded not harshly enough coded 1 and all other
responses coded 0.
To measure somewhat more specific attitudes
toward punishment, a composite index of four items
taken from Cullen, Cullen, and Wozniak (1988) was
created (Punishment Policy Index). An example of
the statements included in this index was ‘‘Since
most criminals will commit crimes over and over
again, the only way to protect society is to put these
criminals in jail and throw away the key.’’ The
respondents indicated, on the same six-point Likert
scale described above, how strongly they agreed or
disagreed with each statement. The individual scores
were summed and divided by the number of items
answered, producing an index of the mean of valid
responses for each respondent (Cronbach’s a = 0.71).
More punitive responses produced higher scores on
this index.
Finally, punitiveness was measured in response to
the offender described in the vignette. Following the
five statements about rehabilitation described above,
four punitive statements were provided (e.g., ‘‘It is
important to make sure Lisa/Gary gets the punishment
that she/he deserves’’). The respondents expressed
their agreement or disagreement on the same six-point
Likert scale, and the items were combined to create a
single index (Cronbach’s a = 0.72). Higher scores on
this Vignette Punitiveness Index indicate more pun-
itive attitudes.
Support for liberal and conservative crime policies
The questionnaire also included several items that
tapped the respondent’s views on traditionally liberal
94 B.K. Applegate et al. / Journal of Criminal Justice 30 (2002) 89–100
and traditionally conservative approaches to crime
control. Six liberal items focused on preventative
measures such as cleaning up neighborhoods, pro-
viding job assistance, and early intervention with
troubled youths (e.g., ‘‘During the summer, the state
government should help provide jobs for inner-city
youths from poor families’’). Six conservative items
concentrated on harsher sentencing and enhancing the
ability of the police and courts to arrest and convict
offenders (e.g., ‘‘Build more prisons so that longer
sentences could be given to criminals’’ and ‘‘Allow
the courts to use evidence that shows an offender’s
guilt, even if it was obtained illegally’’). The respond-
ents assigned each statement one of six points on the
same Likert scale that ranged from disagree strongly
(coded 1) to agree strongly (coded 6). Two summated
indexes were created: a Liberal Crime Policy Index
(Cronbach’s a = 0.76) and a Conservative Crime
Policy Index (Cronbach’s a = 0.68). Index scores
indicate greater support for liberal and conservative
policies, respectively.
Independent variables
The main independent variable of interest, gender,
was measured in a straightforward way. The respond-
ents indicated on the survey whether they were male
or female. In the analyses that follow, male respond-
ents are coded 1 and female respondents are coded 0.
Earlier, this article suggested that a gender gap in
attitudes might be explained by differences in men’s
and women’s moral perspectives (Gilligan, 1982), or
by differential proximity to crime (Miller et al.,
1986). Unfortunately, measures of the respondents’
moral bases were not available in this data set. Thus,
Gilligan’s (1982) explanation of gender differences
could not be assessed directly. In an effort to deter-
mine whether differences in men’s and women’s
views of crime and corrections might be due to their
subjective or objective proximity to crime, two meas-
ures of fear, one measure of victimization, and one
measure of neutral contact with offenders were
included in the multivariate models that follow.
First, the survey asked the respondents, ‘‘At one
time or another, most people have experienced fear
about becoming the victim of a crime. Think back to
those times when you might have felt afraid or
worried that you might be a crime victim. How many
times have you felt afraid of crime in the last
month?’’ The respondents were then afforded the
response options ‘‘none,’’ ‘‘once,’’ ‘‘two or three,’’
‘‘four or five,’’ and ‘‘more than five.’’
The second measure of fear attempted to assess
the respondents’ perceptions of the safety of their
neighborhoods. A set of items asked the respondents
to indicate whether any of five incivil activities
(vandalism, noisy neighbors, litter, teens hanging
out, insulting or bothersome people) were a problem
in their neighborhood. Although they are not direct
measures of one’s fear of becoming a crime victim,
they do assess a more general sense of insecurity. The
responses to these items were combined to form an
additive index, where higher scores indicated percep-
tions of a more civil neighborhood (a = 0.79).
Victimization was measured by asking the re-
spondents to indicate whether they had been the
victim of three property and three personal crimes
in the past twelve months. Those who responded
‘‘yes’’ to any of the crimes were coded 1, and those
who had not been victimized were coded 0.
Contact with offenders was assessed with three
questions that asked each respondent whether he or
she had ever ‘‘visited any prisons or jails,’’ ‘‘worked
for pay or done volunteer work with people who had
broken the law,’’ or ‘‘known someone who was in
prison or jail.’’ A scale of contact was created by
summing the number of affirmative responses.
Additional control variables also were included in
the multivariate analyses. These variables were race,
age, income, education, political conservatism, polit-
ical party, salience of religion, adherence to a literal
interpretation of the Bible, holding a punitive image of
God, and intensity of a religiously based attitude of
forgiveness. Prior studies have found these variables
to be related to social attitudes and/or to gender (Britt,
1998; Grasmick et al., 1993; Haghighi & Lopez, 1998;
Miller et al., 1986; Petersen & Donnenwerth, 1998).
Results
Bivariate analyses
Table 1 presents descriptive statistics for male and
female respondents on each of the continuous depend-
ent variables. The first three variables measure atti-
tudes toward rehabilitation. As shown in the table,
women recorded significantly more favorable attitudes
toward the rehabilitation policies and toward the
rehabilitation of the offender described in the vignette,
compared to men. Women also indicated that they
believed rehabilitation was a more important goal of
prisons than did men. Despite the statistical signific-
ance of these differences, both men’s and women’s
average scores indicated support for rehabilitation. The
average response of both groups fell between ‘‘agree’’
and ‘‘agree slightly’’ for the statements comprising the
Rehabilitation Policy Index and the Vignette Rehab-
ilitation Index. The figures displayed in Table 1 also
indicate that both men and women tended to rate
rehabilitation as an ‘‘important’’ goal of prisons. Thus,
the gap between men’s and women’s views toward
 B.K. Applegate et al. / Journal of Criminal Justice 30 (2002) 89–100 95

Table 1
Men’s and women’s mean attitudes toward crime policies, punishment, and rehabilitation
Significance
Female mean Male mean t (one-tailed)
Rehabilitation Policy Index 4.61 4.25 4.79 .000
Vignette Rehabilitation Index 4.46 4.20 2.85 .002
Importance of Rehabilitation Goal 3.37 3.07 4.18 .000
Importance of Protection Goal 3.60 3.51 1.47 .072
Importance of Punishment Goal 3.53 3.47 1.14 .128
Punishment Policy Index 4.43 4.41 0.29 .384
Vignette Punitiveness Index 3.59 3.81 2.56 .006
Conservative Crime Policy Index 4.37 4.22 1.93 .027
Liberal Crime Policy Index 4.64 4.32 4.03 .000
All indexes were measured on a six-point Likert scale, ranging from agree strongly (coded 6) to disagree strongly (coded 1). The
importance of each goal was measured on a four-point scale, where very important was coded 4 and not important was coded 1.

treatment was a matter of the degree of support, rather with the few studies of rehabilitation attitudes and
than support versus opposition. gender, women in the present study appeared to be
Men and women did not differ significantly, how- more supportive of treatment for offenders. Also
ever, on the following three variables shown in reflecting prior analyses, more men than women
Table 1. On average, both genders believed that favored capital punishment. As noted, there was less
protecting society and punishment were ‘‘important’’ consistency in the findings of prior studies on the
to ‘‘very important’’ goals of prisons. Men and women relationship between other measures of punitiveness
also tended to report very similar attitudes toward the and gender. Equivocal results also are apparent across
items that made up the Punishment Policy Index. the various measures of punishment attitudes
In contrast, the final three variables displayed in included in this study. Men and women were nearly
Table 1 indicate a gender gap. Male and female equally supportive of general punishment policies,
respondents’ punitiveness toward the hypothetical but women seemed to be less punitive than men when
vignette offender differed significantly. On average, they were asked to consider a particular offender.
women were less punitive than men. Compared to
men, women also indicated greater support for con-
servative crime policies and for liberal crime policies.
Table 2 presents descriptive statistics, separately Table 2
for men and women, for the remaining dependent Comparison of men’s and women’s attitudes toward capital
variables. As shown in the table, approximately 70 punishment, the harshness of courts, and the main emphasis
percent of both genders reported a belief that the of prisons
courts are not harsh enough on offenders. Their views Percentage Percentage
on the death penalty and on the main emphasis of of women of men
prisons, however, were significantly different. In Court harshness
terms of capital punishment for murderers, men were Too harsh 2.2 2.5
considerably more likely to favor this sentence About right 27.5 28.9
(81.9 percent) than women (63.9 percent). Women, Not harsh enough 70.2 68.6
however, more often stated that they had ‘‘no opinion.’’ c2 = .154, df = 2, P = .926
Less dramatic, though still significant, differences
were uncovered for the preferred goal of prisons. Capital punishment for murder
Favor 63.9 81.9
Substantially, fewer women than men chose protec-
Oppose 14.8 11.8
tion of society as the appropriate emphasis of prison. No opinion 21.3 6.3
As Table 2 shows, a larger percentage of women c2 = 30.309, df = 2, P = .000
reported that rehabilitation should be the main goal.
The percentage of men was only slightly greater than Main emphasis of prisons should be
the percentage of women choosing ‘‘punishment.’’ Punishment 18.0 21.6
The bivariate analyses shown in Tables 1 and 2 Protection of society 23.5 35.9
suggest that a gender gap in crime attitudes exists. Rehabilitation 49.2 37.0
More so than men, women favored efforts, both Not sure 9.3 5.5
liberal and conservative, to reduce crime. Consistent c2 = 13.709, df = 3, P = .003
96 B.K. Applegate et al. / Journal of Criminal Justice 30 (2002) 89–100

Multivariate analyses equations was the amount of variation explained

To further investigate the gender gap in crime
views, several multivariate models were estimated.
As noted earlier, the apparent distinction between
men’s and women’s attitudes might result from their
different levels of proximity to crime. The multi-
variate models, therefore, control for aspects of this
factor, as well as several other attitudinal and socio-
demographic variables.
The analyses were conducted in two stages. First,
in an effort to assure that the method of analysis
would not alter the results from what was reported in
Tables 1 and 2, regression equations in which gender
was the only independent variable — OLS for the
continuous dependent variables and logit for the
dichotomous dependent variables — were computed.
These results mirrored those shown in Tables 1 and 2.
Secondly, regression equations that included gender
and the other independent variables described earlier
were computed.
Table 3 shows the results of these analyses.3 The
first column of coefficients reports the bivariate
regressions. These models clearly show that women
were more supportive of rehabilitation and of con-
servative and liberal approaches to crime control, but
they were less supportive of capital punishment, and
they were less punitive than men toward specific
offenders. This table also shows that the amount of
variation in these attitudes that was explained by
gender alone was modest. In only four of the eight
greater than 2 percent, and even at its largest, R2
was only .039.
Table 3 also reports the results for gender from the
regression models that included the control variables.
As shown by the increased R2 values, including these
additional variables substantially increased the
explanatory power of the models. Still, little more
than 10 percent of the variation was explained for
most of the dependent variables. More salient to the
focus of this study, however, is whether including
these variables was able to explain away the influence
of gender on crime attitudes. As shown in Table 3,
gender remained significant for most of the models.
Compared to men, women reported significantly
more favorable attitudes toward the Rehabilitation
Policy Index. They also thought that rehabilitation
was a more important goal of prisons, and women
were more likely to choose rehabilitation as the main
goal of prisons. Men, on the other hand, were more
likely to favor capital punishment, were more pun-
itive toward the offender described in the vignette,
and were more likely to select protection as the
appropriate main emphasis of prisons. Men also were
less supportive of conservative crime control efforts
and of liberal crime policies, though gender was not
statistically significant for these variables. These
results suggest that for the most part, the influence
of gender on attitudes toward crime and corrections
was not explained away by fear, victimization, con-
tact with offenders, race, age, income, education,

Table 3
Regression of crime policy attitudes on gender with and without control variables
Without controls With controls
2
Dependent variable Gender b (significance) R Gender b (significance) R2
Rehabilitation Policy Index .361 (.000) .038 .199 (.010) .214
Vignette Rehabilitation Index .259 (.002) .013 .066 (.476) .209
Importance of Rehabilitation Goal .297 (.000) .029 .190 (.014) .117
Main emphasis should be rehabilitation .500 (.003) .013 .490 (.028) .136
(1 = rehabilitation, 0 = all others)
Main emphasis should be protection .600 (.002) .016 .550 (.023) .074
(1 = protection, 0 = all others)
Support for capital punishment .938 (.000) .036 .908 (.000) .115
(1 = favor, 0 = oppose/no opinion)
Vignette Punitiveness Index .221 (.006) .010 .264 (.005) .149
Conservative Crime Policy Index .143 (.027) .005 .130 (.140) .148
Liberal Crime Policy Index .318 (.000) .027 .150 (.065) .226
Gender is coded such that 0 = female and 1 = male. All models include a constant and are statistically significant ( P .05). In all
models, control variables were age, race, education, income, fear of crime, perceived neighborhood incivility, victimization,
conservatism, political party, biblical literalness, religious salience, punitive image of God, and religious forgiveness. The
vignette analyses also included the offender’s race, sex, age, employment history, drug use, offense history, current offense,
sentence type, and type of rehabilitation program as control variables. R2 is the adjusted R2 for the continuous dependent
variables and pseudo-R2 (Aldrich & Nelson, 1984) for the dichotomous dependent variables.
 B.K. Applegate et al. / Journal of Criminal Justice 30 (2002) 89–100
political conservatism, political party, religious views,
or, in the case of the vignette, the specific character-
istics of the offense or the offender.
As a final step in the analyses, regression models
were computed for each dependent variable separately
for men and women.4 The goal was to explore possible
interactions between gender and the other independent
variables. The equation suggested by Brame, Pater-
noster, Mazerolle, and Piquero (1998) was used to test
for significant differences between the regression
coefficients of the male subsample and those of the
female subsample. Of the 184 pairs of coefficients
compared, only thirty-six (19.6 percent) were signific-
antly different, and few clear patterns emerged.
Proximity seemed to be implicated in many of the
instances where men’s and women’s coefficients were
significantly different. Prior victimization, fear of
crime, and perceptions of neighborhood incivility
had significantly greater impacts on women than on
men, though not in every model. Compared to its
effects on men, victimization experience for women
led to greater reductions in support for rehabilitation in
two models (Rehabilitation Policy Index and Import-
ance of Rehabilitation Goal) and for the liberal crime
control policies. Victimization also affected men and
women differently in their views of capital punish-
ment. For men, having been the victim of a crime was
positively related to support, but for women, prior
victimization was negatively related to support. Fear
of crime, either direct or because of perceived incivil-
ity in one’s neighborhood, led to greater support for
capital punishment, greater support for conservative
crime control measures, lesser support for liberal
crime control measures, and reduced perceptions that
rehabilitation is an important goal of prisons among
women compared to men. Finally, women also were
influenced more strongly by the gender of the offender
described in the vignette. The female respondents
tended to be more supportive of rehabilitation and
less punitive when the vignette described a woman;
this was not the case for the male respondents.
Discussion
At the outset, this article proposed to explore
whether men’s attitudes on crime and corrections
were different from women’s. In this regard, a variety
of measures were used to examine support for pun-
ishment, including capital punishment, support for
rehabilitation, and support for liberal and conservat-
ive crime control strategies. Similar to past evalua-
tions, the results are not completely consistent. The
pattern of these findings, however, is understandable.
On the one hand, there is a risk of overestimating
gender differences. Men and women were strikingly
97
similar on some of their views about crime. Women,
for example, were just as likely as men to say that the
courts in their area do not operate harshly enough, a
finding that mirrors results from prior studies (Halim
& Stiles, 2001; Sprott, 1999). This study also failed
to identify significant differences on the perceived
importance of punishment as a goal of prisons or on
the Punishment Policy Index. Even on those variables
that did show significantly different views among
men and women, the divergence was a matter of
degree; men’s and women’s attitudes were not oppos-
ite. For example, the average score on the Liberal
Crime Policy Index for men (4.32) was significantly
different from the average score for women (4.64),
but both groups of respondents tended to express
favorable attitudes. Women were more favorable by
approximately 0.3 points on a six-point scale.
Furthermore, gender accounted for only a modest
percentage of the variation in attitudes. The relatively
weak correlations between gender and attitudes may
help to explain the equivocal results produced by
previous studies. If gender has a limited influence on
crime views, the likelihood of detecting such effects
in any single study would be fairly low (Cohen,
1988). Thus, some samples would identify a signific-
ant relationship while others would not.
On the other hand, even if differences are not
always large, a gender gap in crime attitudes seems to
exist across most outcomes. Differences are espe-
cially evident on support for capital punishment and
support for rehabilitation. These differences tend to
be among the largest. In selecting the main emphasis
of prison, for example, more than 12 percent more
women than men chose rehabilitation. The split was
even larger for capital punishment, where approxi-
mately 64 percent of the female respondents said that
they favored the death penalty, compared to 82 per-
cent of male respondents — a difference of 18 percent.
Moreover, differences in these two conceptual areas
tended to persist even after controls for other varia-
bles were introduced. Women continued to be less
supportive of capital punishment, and more support-
ive of rehabilitation. Women also were notably less
punitive when they were asked to respond to the
particular offender described in the vignette.
These findings suggest the need to probe more
deeply into why these gender differences persist. In
large part, they are not explained by other demo-
graphic characteristics — race, age, income, or edu-
cation — by political views, or by religious views.
Miller et al.’s (1986) suggestion that divergent pun-
ishment preferences might be explained by objective
and subjective proximity to crime largely was not
supported by the data presented here. Although the
concept of proximity could be operationalized more
fully, this study included two measures of objective
98 B.K. Applegate et al. / Journal of Criminal Justice 30 (2002) 89–100
proximity — victimization and neutral contact with
offenders — and two measures of subjective prox-
imity — fear of crime and perceived neighborhood
incivility. As noted, gender effects were not explained
away by these variables in most cases. Relatedly,
differences between the separate-gender models dem-
onstrated that objective and subjective proximity had
greater effects on the attitudes of women than men.
Proximity, however, does not explain away the gen-
der gap in correctional attitudes.
An alternative theoretical position may be useful to
understand the present study’s results. Unfortunately,
this study was unable to directly address an explana-
tion drawn from Gilligan’s (1982) work. Still, her
delineation of ‘‘different voices’’ seems to resonate
with the present findings. The ethic of care that
Gilligan contends predominates among women would
seem to suggest greater concern for the well being of
others, which would explain their greater support for
rehabilitation, as well as their hesitance toward capital
punishment. This framework also makes sense of the
finding for the conservative crime policy issues. Men
would be reacting to these countermeasures based on
an ethic of justice, a concern for individual rights.
Several of the items that made up this index suggested
that efforts to protect citizens from victimization from
crime should supersede concerns for individual rights,
men might be expected to express less-favorable
attitudes. Introducing a direct assessment of people’s
moral bases into analyses of gender and crime views
would likely prove enlightening.
Conclusion
The results reported here show a relatively small
but potentially important gap between men’s and
women’s attitudes toward crime, punishment, and
corrections. To the extent that women have a different
perspective on what should be done about crime and
criminals, they tend to be more compassionate and
more protective. This article has already noted that
past studies have revealed women are more support-
ive of a variety of policies that assist the disadvan-
taged, provide for protection of the environment and
unborn children, and avoid use of force. When the
current findings are placed in the context of differ-
ential gender attitudes toward other social and polit-
ical policies, a salient conclusion emerges: women,
more so than men, seem to hold a general view that
the government should not simply be an instrument
of punishment and accountability but also should
provide assistance to people with needs.
As women take a greater role in public policy
making, their orientation toward crime policies may
become increasingly important. In an effort to answer
whether an increase in the number of women in
political office matters in regard to the concerns of
women, Mezey (1994) reviewed the research on the
attitudinal and behavioral differences between male
and female politicians. The topics studied under the
umbrella of ‘‘women’s issues’’ frequently include
such considerations as reproductive rights, child
abuse, welfare reform, and education. Based on
studies from the past three decades, Mezey (1994,
p. 267) concluded that ‘‘sex, along with party affili-
ation and political ideology, plays an important role
in determining legislative support for women’s
issues’’ (also see Reingold, 1992).
The qualified finding of sex differences among
policymakers combined with the results of the present
study suggest that a gender gap may affect crime
policy, as well as other issue areas. The gender
differences revealed here were small but showed
consistency. It would be easy to claim too much
regarding the potential impact of women on correc-
tions and crime policies, but there is also a risk in
dismissing modest differences. Even if only incre-
mentally and intermittently, women may exert a
humanizing influence on correctional and crime pol-
icymaking in the United States.
Acknowledgments
This project was supported by Grant No. 96-IJ-
CX-0007 awarded by the National Institute of Justice,
Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of
Justice, and a grant awarded by the University
Research Council, University of Cincinnati. Points
of view in this document are those of the authors and
do not necessarily represent the official position or
policies of the U.S. Department of Justice or the
University of Cincinnati.
Notes
1. Analyses that included Gender  Race interaction
effects revealed that such effects were not statistically
significant for most of the dependent variables in the study.
Because of the limited number of non-White respondents
in the sample, however, these results are unreliable and
cannot be taken as evidence that race and gender do
not interact.
2. In the interest of parsimony, this article only
provides examples of the items in each of the indexes
included in this study. Complete lists of all items for each
index are available from the lead author.
3. Table 3 does not list the gender coefficients for the
following dependent variables: Punishment Policy Index,
Importance of Protection as a Goal, Importance of Punish-
ment as a Goal, Court Harshness, or Punishment as the Main
 B.K. Applegate et al. / Journal of Criminal Justice 30 (2002) 89–100
Goal of Prisons. Gender was not a significant predictor of
public views on any of these measures either in the bivariate
or in the multivariate analyses.
4. Tables displaying the results of these analyses are
available from the lead author.
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