In recent years there has been an increase in research looking into attitudes towards sex offenders which utilises the Attitudes Towards Sex Offenders scale created by Hogue (2013), however there is a lack of research into the three subscales: trust, intent and social distance. Therefore, this current study attempts to fill this gap in the literature. Furthermore, it aims to add to the body of research looking into punitive attitudes towards different offence types, specifically highlighting sexually deviant groups such as paedophiles. This dissertation is undertaken through a secondary analysis of an existing data set which recruited 181 participants (Mabbott & Brown, 2016). The current study uses the results from the 21-Item Attitudes Towards Sex Offenders scale (Hogue, 2013) and the Punitive Attitudes scale (Imhoff, 2015). Punitive attitudes towards different offence-related labels were investigated and it was found that these attitudes are influenced by pre-existing attitudes towards sex offenders. The three ATS subscales were examined, and it was found that intent influences punitive attitudes the most. Results also indicated that participants had the harshest punitive attitudes toward the Paedophile and SIPC labels when comparing the offence labels to the Sex Offender label. The results are discussed taking into account the impact of the media and stereotyping, and appropriate recommendations for future research have been suggested.
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