Citizens' crime stereotypes,biased recall,and punishment preferences in abstract cases: The educative role of interpersonal sources

Although researchers have noted the importance of understanding how people form punishment preferences about abstract criminal cases, few studies have examined this issue. Using both experimental and survey data, two processes, reliance on an availability heuristic and reliance on a crime stereotype, contributed to punishment preferences. The findings suggest that the biased recall of severe crimes fuels demands for harsher punishment in opinion polls, and that unstable, uninformed opinions partly produce the demands for harsher punishment. These studies also found that information about crime from interpersonal sources can change media driven, unrealistic crime stereotypes and substantially reduce the biased recall of atypical, severe crimes reported in the mass media. Biased recall for more severe cases can be eliminated by including concrete or contextually distinct details in crime stories that contain minor harm. These studies highlight the important role of context in punishment preferences and the important role that interpersonal sources can play in educating the public about the nature of specific offenses.