In pursuit of the beast: undergraduate attitudes towards sex offenders and implications for society, rehabilitation and British psychology education

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Harper, C.A. ORCID: 0000-0002-3172-0129, 2012. In pursuit of the beast: undergraduate attitudes towards sex offenders and implications for society, rehabilitation and British psychology education. Internet Journal of Criminology. ISSN 2045-6743

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Abstract

Positive attitudes toward sex offenders can lead to favourable treatment outcomes and with psychology students being among the most likely graduates to move into offender rehabilitation, it is important to investigate the attitudes of this group. Students from British psychology and non-psychology courses read vignettes depicting an adult and a juvenile committing a contact sexual offence on a child, and completed modified versions of the attitudes towards sex offenders [ATS] questionnaire. The adult offender was viewed significantly more punitively than the juvenile offender, but no significant differences were found between subgroups of participants. It was concluded that undergraduate psychology degrees do not go far enough to address some of the stigmatised views held by the general population towards sex offenders. Implications for media reporting, recidivism and psychology education are discussed.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Internet Journal of Criminology
Creators:	Harper, C.A.
Publisher:	New University Press
Date:	2012
ISSN:	2045-6743
Rights:	© copyright 2002-2016 flashmousepublishing ltd.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Jill Tomkinson
Date Added:	16 Sep 2016 10:46
Last Modified:	19 Oct 2017 10:35
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/28560