Racial animus and its association with punitive sentencing and crime types: Do Australian community attitudes reflect the United States’?

Abstract

The racial animus model argues that public support for punitive sentencing of criminal offenders is shaped by threat perceptions associated with cultural minority groups. This study applies the racial animus model to examine support for the punitive sentencing of criminal offenders in the United States and Australia. It also examines whether racial animus mediates the possible difference in punitive attitudes between each country toward different crime types. Online survey data were obtained in the US and Australia to assess racial animus and punitive attitudes using six different crime scenarios. Results indicate that (a) individuals with higher levels of racial animus demonstrate greater levels of punitiveness; (b) Australians have higher levels of racial animus as compared to their US counterparts; and (c) racial animus mediates the difference of punitive attitudes between the two countries. Overall, punitive attitudes and racial animus vary cross-culturally, with Australians demonstrating more racial animus. Our mediation model provides evidence for the importance of racial animus in the cross-cultural demand for the punishment of criminal offenders.

Keywords

Punitive attitudes racial animus minority group threat ethnic intolerance typification of crime Australia Indigenous United States African American

Criminal justice policies within Western societies are often influenced by public attitudes to crime and criminal offenders (Pratt, 2006; Roberts & Indermaur, 2007). Punitive attitudes refers to public support for harsher sentencing of offenders and harsher crime policies as an alternative to other options such as rehabilitation (Hogan et al., 2005; Maruna & King, 2009). The influence of punitive attitude on criminal justice policies provides one explanation for increasing prison populations in Western democracies (Cunneen et al., 2016). This trend can be traced back to the 1970s, which saw a shift in public attitudes away from the rehabilitation of criminal offenders and toward a desire to punish them as harshly as possible (Maruna & King, 2009). The public demand for harsher punishments is reflected in US criminal justice policies such as “zero tolerance” and “three-strikes” sentencing (Jones & Newburn, 2005). The theory of American exceptionalism posits that the incarceration rates in the US, along with other penal policies and practices, are exceptionally harsh compared to other Western nations (Garland, 2020). Examining punitive attitudes and the link with racism in the United States and Australia is important as both nations have high incarceration rates compared with other Western democracies (Jones & Newburn, 2005; Nagin et al., 2009; Walmsley, 2016) especially of their non-White offenders (Anthony, 2017; Jeffries & Bond, 2012).

A common approach to understanding punitive attitudes has been to examine global trends regarding factors associated with the public support for harsher sentencing options (Unnever & Cullen, 2010a). In the 19th century, countries generally did not look beyond their own borders to address their national crime concerns. However, the rise of the internet, globalisation, and the associated pressure for accountability has made it increasingly difficult to dismiss the criminal justice policies in other countries (Howard et al., 2000). As such, the mid-to-late 20th century has seen a renewed interest in comparative or “cross-national” criminology. Comparative criminology highlights cross-cultural research and aims to expand the knowledge base of delinquency and crime across the world (Evans et al., 1996). Research findings from cross-national studies can contribute to policy debates and assist policy makers to address expanding prison populations (Cunneen et al., 2016; Howard et al., 2000). The present cross-national comparison aims to increase our understanding of the role of racial animus in contributing to the public demand for harsher sentencing options in two different western democracies. The role that racial animus plays in influencing punitive attitudes comparing the United States with Australia remains unknown.

The racial animus model

Racial animus has been defined as the harbouring of animus, resentment or negative sentiment towards cultural minority groups (Unnever & Cullen, 2010a). The minority group threat hypothesis underpins the racial animus model for example, Liska, 1992. This hypothesis proposes that the majority group (e.g., Whites) use different types of social control to manage the minority group who are perceived to be a threat to scarce resources such as employment and housing (Wheelock et al., 2011). The racial animus model (Unnever & Cullen, 2010a) argues that punitive attitudes are shaped by threat perceptions associated with racial minority groups (King & Wheelock, 2007; Unnever et al., 2005; Unnever & Cullen, 2010a, 2010b), whereby crime is associated with specific racial groups (Chiricos et al., 2004; Welch et al., 2011). The model posits that racial animus increases punitive attitudes as the majority group seek power through crime-control measures (Wheelock et al., 2011). There is considerable empirical evidence to suggest that the minority group threat hypothesis has impacted significantly on crime-control policy in the United States (e.g., Behrens et al., 2003; Earl et al., 2003; Jacobs & Carmichael, 2001; Liska et al., 1985). However, only a few studies have focused on the importance of racial animus as a source of punitive attitudes in contexts other than the United States and Europe (Lehmann et al., 2020). The present cross-national study aims to extend the literature by applying the racial animus model to assess punitive attitudes for different crime types.

It has been proposed that many Western democracies, such as Australia, follow penal policy trends and penal globalisation influenced predominantly by the United States (Cavadino & Dignan, 2006). For example, Australia has followed the United States in adopting practices such as the privatisation of prisons and the electronic monitoring of offenders. Further, in the United States, empirical evidence linked racial animus to punitive attitudes (e.g., Brown & Socia, 2017; Unnever & Cullen, 2010b). However, as Jones and Weatherburn (2010) note, “It is not safe to assume that Australian public attitudes towards the criminal justice system are a mirror image of those found in countries such as the United States and Britain” (p. 507). For example, studies have not found a link between punitive attitudes and racial intolerance in Portugal and Ireland, despite empirical support obtained in other European countries (Unnever & Cullen, 2010a). Also, there are significant differences in the criminal justice systems across the two countries that could influence punitive attitudes. For example, institutional characteristics of the U.S. criminal justice system (e.g., the public election of judges) means that public opinion about the punishment of criminal offenders is more likely to impact on crime policies (Savelsberg, 1994). In contrast to the United States, all judges in Australia are appointed; therefore, the influence of public opinion on the sentencing of criminal offenders may be more indirect. As such, the extent that penal globalisation and punitive attitudes exist and is primarily influenced by U.S. trends requires investigation. Furthermore, it is unknown whether racial animus in the United States is also unique and may relate to the theory of American exceptionalism.

American exceptionalism

The theory of American exceptionalism has been defined as the tendency for disciplinary policies and practices in the United States to diverge greatly from other industrialised and developed Western nations (Reitz, 2017). The theory posits greater comparative punitive policies and practices in the United States across multiple dimensions, such as capital punishment, incarceration rates, sentence lengths, and the use of solitary confinement (see Garland, 2020 for a discussion). American exceptionalism has been invoked by proponents of the death penalty (Steiker, 2002), and other penal policy and practice domains in the United States, such as policing, prosecution, sentencing, imprisonments and community supervision (Corda & Hester, 2021). For example, in many U.S. jurisdictions, crime policies minimise discretion in judicial sentences. This leaves fewer opportunities to consider mitigating circumstances in the sentencing process (Jeffries & Bond, 2012). Further, the United States is known for its “zero tolerance” policies (Sharkey, 2018), high rates of police–civilian killings (Karabel, 2015), and increased use of “life without parole sentences” (Garland, 2020). The United States is also the only major Western democracy that retains the death penalty—considered to be the most extreme form of judicial punitiveness for crime—with over a dozen U.S. states still carrying out executions (McPhail et al., 2017).

Comparative research examining the theory of American exceptionalism has been limited, with the idea that the United States should do things “its way” contributing a demise of comparative criminal justice enterprise in the United States (Corda & Hester, 2021). However, Kugler et al. (2013) examined the theory by using census representative samples to examine punitive attitudes in the United States, Canada, and Germany. They found no significant difference in the U.S. and Canadian respondents’ assignment of sentences to offenders. This is despite Canada having lenient sentencing policies compared to the United States. Also, a study by De Soto et al. (2021) found that U.S. survey respondents did not significantly differ from Australians in their punitive attitudes, except for drug-related crimes in which Australian participants were more punitive. This suggests that cross-cultural differences in public support for punitive sentencing vary according to crime type. However, findings examining the theory of American exceptionalism have also shown some inconsistency. For example, when compared with Germany, U.S. respondents assign harsher sentences for offenders (Kugler et al., 2013). Also, while crime control policies appear to be more punitive in the US compared to Russia, data show that Russians tend to be more punitive in their attitudes to sentencing compared to Americans (Wheelock et al., 2011). These findings suggest that the crime control policies of a country do not always reflect the punitive attitudes of her people and that other factors influence the public demand for harsher sentencing of criminal offenders. The racial animus model is one theoretical model that could explain cross-national differences in punitive attitudes.

Minority group threat

In the United States, African Americans are perceived as the threatening minority group (Jones & Newburn, 2005; Wheelock et al., 2011), which is reflected in their disproportionately high number of arrests and incarcerations (Carson, 2020; Unnever & Cullen, 2010a). In fact, it has been argued that the criminal justice system has historically been used to maintain racial hierarchies in both the United States (Perkinson, 2010) and Australia (Cunneen et al., 2016). In the United States, slavery ended in 1865, but segregation persisted across the Southern U.S. states for another century. Police, prosecutors and courts continued to discriminate against racial minority groups (De Soto, 2018). The United States has ongoing racial tension between White and Black, including within criminal justice settings. The public killing of George Floyd, a Black man, killed by White police officers in Minnesota in May 2020 sparked the Black Lives Matter movement, with protests and rallies across the United States and beyond. Together with the theory of American exceptionalism, these historical events support an argument for higher levels of racial animus in the United States compared to Australia. Unnever and Cullen (2010b), for example, found that “racial resentment” predicts punitive attitudes and support for the death penalty. Brown and Socia (2017) replicated the study by Unnever and Cullen (2010b) to conclude that the social sources of punitive views in the United States have not shifted fundamentally in the past 15 years, with anti-Black resentment remaining a strong predictor of support for punitive sentencing outcomes. In the United States, this finding has been extended to other minority groups. Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the pervasive global threat of terrorism and the association with cultural minority groups has spurred the adoption of counter-terrorism measures (Roach, 2011). Welch (2016) used survey data to conclude that Americans who stereotyped Middle Eastern individuals as terrorists were also stronger in their endorsement of punitive counter-terrorism policies.

There are several reasons to expect that levels of racial animus may differ between the United States and Australia, such as historical differences in the colonisation and government policies of both countries. For example, when the Commonwealth of Australia was constituted in 1901, the idea of a “White Australia” or aspiration of a racially homogeneous society was already present (Affeldt & Hund, 2019). The term ‘White Australia policy’ refers to a set of historical policies aimed at restricted the immigration of people from the non-European ethnic origin countries, including Asians and Pacific Islanders. These policies were slowly dismantled between 1949 and 1973, but the negative perception toward non-White immigrants continued (Turoy-Smith et al., 2013). Terrorist events such as the Bali bombings, and the racially motivated 2005 Cronulla riots in Sydney renewed public awareness of racial tensions and debate concerning immigration policies (Dandy & Pe-Pua, 2010). There is evidence that negative perception of racial minority groups is associated with the perception of increasing crime rates (Hogg & Brown, 1998). Research examining the presence of racial animus in Australia and its link with punitive attitudes is scant (Snowball & Weatherburn, 2007), despite Australia having a long history of immigration and a somewhat “checkered” history of relationships between different cultural minority groups (Turoy-Smith et al., 2013).

It is perhaps unsurprising that empirical evidence in Australia suggests that new immigrants are perceived as a threatening minority group and that racial animus toward them predicts punitive attitudes (Kornhauser, 2013; Roberts & Indermaur, 2007). However, a limitation of these studies involves the use of a general single-item measure (Roberts & Indermaur, 2007) or a three-item measure of anti-immigration sentiment (Kornhauser, 2013). As most terrorist attacks in Australia have been committed by individuals who identified as Muslim (Zammit, 2017), it is perhaps unsurprising that Muslims have expressed regarding the racial typification of terrorist crime in Australia (e.g., Bull & Rane, 2019).

There is empirical evidence to suggest that Indigenous Australians are also perceived as a threatening minority group (Brookman & Wiener, 2017a). Australia was initially established as a British penal colony, and the criminal justice system has contributed to the association of Indigenous Australians as “criminal others” (Baldry et al., 2015; Cunneen, 2020). Indigenous Australians were recipients of different criminal justice policies such as post-colonial segregation and institutional differences in the application longer prison sentences and greater use of death penalty sentences (see Cunneen et al., 2016). Public executions of Indigenous Australians continued for decades beyond their cessation for non-Indigenous offenders (Baldry et al., 2015). Also, physical punishments of Indigenous offenders, such as floggings, lashings, and chaining, continued well into the 20th century (Cunneen, 2020). April 2021 saw the 30th anniversary of the published findings of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, which provided 339 recommendations. Most of these recommendations are yet to be implemented and are still valid. For example, contemporary statistics indicate that the percentage of Indigenous Australians dying in custody now is greater than the original percentage that led to the royal commission (Jordan et al., 2019). With regard to punitive public attitudes, Brookman and Wiener (2017a) found that racial animus toward Indigenous Australians predicts punitive attitudes over-and-above community crime concerns (i.e., fear of crime, confidence in the courts and perception of crime rates rising). In addition, the link between the publics’ crime concerns and punitive attitudes appears to be mediated by negative perceptions of new immigrants and Indigenous Australians (Brookman & Wiener, 2017b). These findings are congruent with the ongoing overrepresentation of Indigenous Australians in prisons (Anthony, 2017).

In both the United States and Australia, incarceration rates reveal an over-representation of racial minority groups. Since the 1950s, the U.S. prison population has been shifting away from inmates being majority “White” Americans to being majority African and Latino Americans (Raphael & Stoll, 2007; Wacquant, 2010). In 2018, the incarceration rate of Black males in the US was 5.8 times that of White males, and Black females at a rate 1.8 times that of White females (Carson, 2020). In Australia, racial and ethnic minority groups are similarly overrepresented in every stage of the criminal justice system. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people collectively constitute 3.3% of the Australian population (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2018), yet they account for over one-quarter (28%) of the country's incarcerated individuals (ABS, 2019). Incarceration practices may indirectly perpetuate racial typification of crime and public perception that crime is committed by “criminal other.”

In summary, there is an important comparative case for examining punitive attitudes and racial animus in the United States and Australia. Both countries have ethnic minority groups who have been perceived as a “threat” such as African Americans (Bobo & Johnson, 2004; Unnever et al., 2005), and Hispanics living in the United States (Welch et al., 2011), and Indigenous populations and new immigrants in Australia (Brookman & Wiener, 2017a, 2017b; Kornhauser, 2013). Further, both Australia and the United States have high incarceration rates as compared with other Western democracies (Jones & Newburn, 2005; Nagin et al., 2009), especially of non-White offenders (Anthony, 2017). There are also significant differences in penal policies and practices across the two countries, with the theory of American exceptionalism arguing for greater punitivity in the United States (e.g., Garland, 2020). Therefore, a cross-national comparison enables an examination of whether these similarities and differences are reflected in the punitive public attitudes and how racial animus might mediate these differences across the two countries. Also, it is unknown whether racial animus influences public support for sentencing in ways that could vary with crime type.

Punitive attitudes and different crime types

To test the application of the racial animus model in the United States and Australia, public racial animus and punitive attitudes are the principal concepts in this study. Examining these concepts in a cross-national setting, however, can pose a challenge (Howard et al., 2000). For example, most of the research in the United States has measured punitive attitudes with a single question such as support for the death penalty (Kääriäinen, 2018). This approach does not permit cross-cultural comparisons between the United States and countries like Australia that have abolished the death penalty. As such, the use of methodological approaches such as a self-report survey enables the use of behavioural definitions and scenarios that bypasses legal definitions and justice practices in each country (Howard et al., 2000). This approach also addresses recent findings suggesting that public opinion is more complex and varies with the amount of crime information provided (Cullen et al., 2000). In the United States, for example, drug crimes are viewed less harshly than crimes against children (Tajalli et al., 2013). Similarly, Australian public views on sentencing are more nuanced when researchers use different methodologies such as scenarios to probe more deeply into specific offence types and offenders (Fitzgerald et al., 2020), and also when questions are asked alongside contextual details about the criminal offence (for a discussion see Bartels et al., 2018). In the present study, therefore, crime scenarios are used to capture variability in punitive attitudes according to different crime types (Borg, 1997).

The present study

The current study examines whether public support for punitive sentencing of offenders is associated with higher levels of racial animus for differing crime types and whether this is different for the U.S. and Australian residents. Further, the current study explores the role of racial animus in mediating the possible difference of support for punitive sentencing between the two countries. Cross-national comparisons examining the application of the racial animus model and punitive attitudes to sentencing are rare, especially those examining racial animus according to different crime types. As such, while demographic variables such as age, gender, education, and race are known to influence punitive attitudes, we controlled for these to highlight the effect of racial animus on punitive attitudes. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to compare racial animus and punitive attitudes of Australians with another country. Consistent with the aims of comparative criminology, findings could clarify how animus toward cultural minority groups might influence the demand for crime control policies and vary according to crime type and country of residence. As such, it is anticipated that results will inform policy aimed at reducing punitive attitudes.

Hypotheses

H₁: Extending the work of Unnever and Cullen (2010b) through applying the racial animus model to six different crime types, it is predicted that individuals with higher levels of racial animus support more punitive sentencing options for offenders of all six crime types examined in this study.

H₂. Based on the theory of American exceptionalism, it is predicted that there is a difference in racial animus in the United States and Australia, whereby Americans hold higher levels of animus than Australians.

H₃_: Extending on the work of De Soto et al. (2021) identifying a cross-national difference (Australia vs. the United States) in support for punitive sentencing outcomes, it is predicted that racial animus mediates the differences of punitive attitudes between the two countries.

Method

Participants

The participants in this study included the cohort of U.S. and Australian survey respondents from De Soto et al., 2021. The Qualtrics platform was used for data collection in both countries in 2018 and 2019. The U.S. online survey was distributed using Facebook Ad-Manager and Prolific, the latter of which provided a small monetary payment to participants. Hard copy surveys were distributed and completed by students attending the 35th largest university in the United States (out of 5300 universities and colleges). A total of 251 respondents answered the Facebook ad resulting in 116 completed surveys. The Prolific campaign resulted in 225 responses, with 201 completed surveys. The university survey had a return of 585, of which 398 were completed. This resulted in a total of 715 completed US surveys.

The Australian survey was posted only on the Facebook Ad-Manager for the public and the Sona Systems^® for university students. A total of 3,600 surveys were returned, of which 2,802 were complete. Due to the sample size discrepancy between the United States and Australia, 715 of the Australians completed returns were matched based on gender (male or female), age (years), and education (years of formal education) to that of completed U.S. returns. Post hoc comparison of the subset of 715 Australian matched cases did not show the subset to have higher levels of racial animus compared to the subgroup of excluded cases. In total 1430 returns were used for this study, with half being the United States and half being the matched Australian returns. The demographics of the samples are presented in Table 1.

Table 1.

Descriptive statistics for the sample demographics by country.

Demographic variable	Australia (N = 715)		US (N = 715)
Demographic variable	N (%)	Mean (SD)	N (%)	Mean (SD)
Gender
Male	287 (40%)		287 (40%)
Female	428 (60%)		428 (60%)
Race
White	526 (74%)		459 (64%)
Non-White	189 (26%)		256 (36%)
Age in years		32.05 (14.95)		32.05 (15.17)
18–21	222 (31%)		224 (31%)
22–40	326 (46%)		320 (45%)
41–81	167 (23%)		171 (24%)
Years of Education		15.32 (2.63)		15.35 (2.36)
12 years or less	79 (11%)		76 (11%)
13 to 15 years	334 (47%)		330 (46%)
16 years plus	302 (42%)		309 (43%)
Racial Animus^†		2.56 (1.05)		2.04 (.96)

†

On a 5-point Likert scale where 1 = Strongly Disagree and 5 = Strongly Agree.

Measures

Punitive attitudes

Participants’ punitive attitudes to sentencing were measured using six criminal scenarios identified by McCorkle (1993), each representing a different type of common crime. A list of these criminal offences and their associated scenarios are presented in Table 2. In response to each scenario, participants were asked to provide a rating on a scale ranging from 1, endorsing ‘strict rehabilitative’ approaches, to 11, endorsing ‘strict punitive’ approaches. Participants were provided with examples of rehabilitative approaches (counselling, therapy, education, vocation training, and other programs that try to change the offender), and punishment-oriented approaches (no rehabilitative programs or assistance).

Table 2.

Crime scenarios of the dependent variables.

Robbery^†	A man approaches a couple in a parking lot of a [restaurant] and demands their cash. They refuse, so he pulls a knife, stabbing and wounding them both. He then takes their money and runs away. Later he is arrested and brought to trial.
Rape	A woman in a bar accepts a ride home from a man who bought her a drink. Instead of taking her home, he pulls into a deserted area and sexually assaults her. The woman later identifies the man in a police line-up.
Molestation	A male volunteer in a local boy's group is convicted of molesting several boys during a weekend camping trip.
Burglary	A quiet neighborhood is struck by a rash of daytime burglaries in which thousands of dollars’ worth of valuable properties are stolen. Police investigations later lead to the arrest of a man who lived in the area.
Drug sale	As a result of a sting operation, a man is convicted of selling cocaine to an undercover police officer.
Drug possession	During a routine traffic stop, a patrolman spots a small vial of cocaine in the back seat of the driver's car.

Source: Adapted from Richard C. McCorkle (1993, p. 244).

†

Casino’ was replaced with ‘restaurant’.

Table 3 provides estimated marginal means (EMM) of punitive attitudes of the U.S. and Australian samples. The EMM is the average attitude on each scenario after controlling for age, gender, education, and race (White vs. non-White) of participants.

Table 3.

Comparing the estimated marginal means (EMM) of American and Australian punitive attitudes.

	Robbery	Rape	Child Molestation	Burglary	Selling Drugs	Drug Possession
Australia	7.70	8.68	9.09	6.53	5.80	3.93
US	8.23	9.00	9.31	6.91	5.42	3.87

Response set for punitive attitude on a scale 1-11.

EMM: Adjusted for Age, Gender, Education, Race, and Racial Animus.

Racial animus

As both a dependent and independent variable, racial animus was measured using the modern racism scale (MRS) (Augoustinos et al., 1994; McConahay et al., 1981). Since our questionnaire was administered in two different countries, the wording was modified to fit our purpose. Instead of naming a specific minority, our questions referred to people with ‘different ethnic backgrounds'. This is consistent with findings that racial animus directed toward new immigrants (regardless of their skin colour) is associated with an increase in punitive attitudes (Brookman & Wiener, 2017b; Metcalfe & Cann, 2020; Pickett et al., 2015; Welch et al., 2011). To ensure the MRS applied to both the U.S. and Australian sample groups, references to specific countries were replaced with the phrase “in this country.” An example of a modified MRS item is “People of other different ethnic backgrounds should not push themselves where they are not wanted” (see Appendix A for scale items).

A further alteration was made to the scoring of the MRS. The original MRS questions were rated on a 5-point scale ranging from −2 to + 2. For the present study, we used a 5-point scale that ranges from 1, strongly disagree, to 5, indicating strongly agree. Six of the MRS questions were worded positively, and one was negatively worded “It is easy to understand the anger of people of different ethnic backgrounds in this country.” Responses to this latter question were inversed to calculate an index of racial animus. The index is the arithmetic average of these seven questions after inversing the negatively worded question. Higher scores on the items indicate higher levels of racial animus. Cronbach α for our Australian sample is 0.91 and for our American sample is 0.89. The last row of Table 1 provides average levels of racial animus for Americans as well as Australians.

Data analysis

Four demographic covariates are also incorporated into our analyses: age, gender, education, and race. Age is measured in terms of years. The variable education measures years of formal education. Gender and race are coded in dummy forms where Male and White are each coded as 1. Female and non-White are each coded as zero in these two dichotomous variables.

To test the hypotheses of this study two statistical procedures are employed. The first two hypotheses of the study are tested using partial correlation analysis. Mediation analysis is used to test the third hypothesis. The design of this mediation analysis is depicted in Figure 1. As the figure shows, there are two dependent variables in this design. As the arrows on the figure indicate, one dependent variable is a measure of the punitive attitude of the respondents, and the second is racial animus. Racial animus in this analysis also acts as an independent variable.

Results

Relations between racial animus, country, and punitive attitudes

The primary purpose of this study is to examine whether U.S. and Australian respondents are different in their punitive attitudes toward criminal offenders and whether this possible difference is mediated by the two countries level of racial animus. Two sets of analyses are conducted to corroborate our answers to the hypotheses of this study. They are Partial Correlation and Mediation analyses, as presented in Tables 4 and 5. Partial correlations were computed after controlling for demographic variables of age, gender, race, and years of formal education. The mediation analysis tests our third hypothesis that racial animus has a mediating effect on the possible cross-national differences in punitive attitudes between the United States and Australia. The mediation analysis was conducted following the regression-based conditional process analysis approach using the custom dialogue “PROCESS” (Version 3.3; Hayes, 2018) in SPSS. The standard errors and the 95% confidence interval (CI) of the mediation effect were bootstrapped and bias-corrected (based on 5,000 samples). To avoid multicollinearity, the analysis package automatically standardises all variables by centring them around the mean. The mediating effects of racial animus on punitive attitudes (the indirect effect = a.b) are presented toward the bottom of Table 5. Letters ‘a’, ‘b’ and ‘ć’ in Table 5 represent relationships depicted in Figure 1.

Table 4.

Partial correlations controlled for age, gender, race, and the level of education of respondents.

	Country^†	Robbery	Rape	Child Molest.	Burglary	Selling Drug	Drug Possess.	Animus
Country	1.00
Robbery	.01	1.00
Rape	.02	.60**	1.00
Child Molestation	−.01	.51**	.75**	1.00
Burglary	−.02	.56**	.40**	.31**	1.00
Selling Drug	−.17**	.42**	.29**	.24**	.61**	1.00
Drug Possession	−.11**	.33**	.19**	.17**	.53**	.72**	1.00
Animus^††	−.27**	.32**	.13**	.17**	.31**	.40**	.36**	1.00

Response set for punitive attitude measured on scale 1–11.

†

Coding (0, 1):US = 1.

††

On a 5-point Likert scale where 1 = Strongly Disagree and 5 = Strongly Agree.

*Significant at α < 0.05.

**Significant at α < 0.01.

Table 5.

Differences of punitive attitude between Americans and Australians towards criminal offenders mediated by racial animus.

Predictors	M (Animus)	Y₁ (Robbery)	Y₂ (Rape)	Y₃ (Child Molest.)	Y₄ (Burglary)	Y₅ (Selling Drugs)	Y₆ (Drug Possess.)
Predictors	Coef. (95% CI)^†	Coef. (95% CI)^†	Coef. (95% CI)^†	Coef. (95% CI)^†	Coef. (95% CI)^†	Coef. (95% CI)^†	Coef. (95% CI)^†
X (US/Australia)	−.518**(a)(−.612 to −.424)	.503**(ć)(.244–.758)	.297*(ć)(.024–.564)	.195(ć)(−.071–.465)	.342*(ć)(.071–.606)	−.454**(ć)(−.745 to −.144)	−.138(ć)(−.409–.134)
M (Animus)	−	.906**(b)(.782–1.036)	.392**(b)(.254–.527)	.451**(b)(.318–.584)	.911**(b)(.768–1.046)	1.196**(b)(1.039–1.353)	1.040**(b)(.896–1.188)
C₁ (Age)	.023**(.019–.026)	.006(−.003–.014)	.003(−.006–.013)	.009(−.001–.018)	.011*(.001–.020)	.022**(.012–.033)	.015**(.005–.024)
C₂ (Sex)	.476**(.375–.575)	.256(−.005–.508)	.025(−.236–.282)	−.020(−.289–.238)	−.234(−.514–.040)	−.462**(−.748 to −.169)	−.598**(−.871 to −.332)
C₃ (Education)	−.069**(−.090 to −.047)	−.012(−.064–.041)	−.042(−.096–.012)	−.065*(−.116 to −.013)	−.019(−.076–.034)	.035(−.025–.098)	.032(−.024–.090)
C₄ (White/non−White)	.036(−.061–.132)	−.317*(−.605 to −.033)	−.34*(−.639 to −.050)	−.260(−.544–.027)	−.379*(−.673 to −.073)	−.824**(−.025–.098)	−.834**(−1.130 to −.550)
Constant	2.683**(2.352–2.995)	5.752**(4.870–6.598)	8.544**(7.680–9.448)	8.970**(8.115–9.781)	4.767**(3.911–5.628)	2.585**(1.596–3.558)	1.429**( .469–2.358)
	R² = .23	R² = .15	R² = .03	R² = .05	R² = .13	R² = .21	R² = .18
	F = 82.89**	F = 41.06****	F = 8.27**	F = 11.46**	F = 34.65**	F = 62.95**	F = 50.50**
		Indirect Effect:a⸳b = −.469**(−.577 to −.369)^†.034(c)	Indirect Effect:a⸳b = −.203**(−.287 to −.125)^†.095(c)	Indirect Effect:a⸳b = −.234**(−.324 to −.157)^†−.040(c)	Indirect Effect:a⸳b = −.473**(−.586 to −.366)^†−.130(c)	Indirect Effect:a⸳b = −.619(−.763 to −.482)^†−1.073(c)	Indirect Effect:a⸳b = −.539(−.668 to −.418)^†−.677(c)

Coding (0, 1):US = 1; Male = 1; White = 1.

(a),(b), and (ć) represent relationships indicated in Figure 1.

†

Bootstrap 95% Confidence Interval.

* Significant at α < .05. ** Significant at α < .01

Our first hypothesis that racial animus heightens the punitiveness of individuals (‘b’ relationship on Figure 1) is supported by partial correlation results as well as the mediation analysis. As shown in the last row of Table 4, racial animus was positively correlated with the punitive score for each of the six offence types. Similarly, significant positive coefficients in row M of Table 5 (coefficients denoted by letter ‘b’) confirm that as racial animus increases, punitive attitudes also increase for all six criminal offences examined in this study. In short, our results indicate that respondents who hold a higher degree of animosity toward other racial groups tend to be more punitive than people with less animus.

Our second hypothesis that U.S. respondents hold higher levels of racial animus than Australians is not supported by the findings of this study. Contrary to our prediction, racial animus appears to be significantly higher (last row of Table 4, r = −0.27**) among Australian respondents versus their American counterparts. Mediation analysis confirms the partial correlation results. The coefficient of interest under the column M of Table 5 (b = −0.518**) represents this significant difference between the US and Australian respondents. This coefficient is represented as letter ‘a’ in Table 5 and the relationship in Figure 1.

Regarding our last hypothesis, the findings support the proposition that racial animus mediates the differences in punitive attitudes between the two countries. As the significant coefficients representing indirect effects (a.b) of racial animus on punitive attitudes show (Table 5, rows 2 and 3 from the bottom), the differences in punitive attitudes between the two countries are mediated by racial animus on all six criminal offences. It is noteworthy that Australians are significantly more punitive than their U.S. counterparts on drug selling (Table 4, r = −.17**) and drug possession (Table 4, r = −0.11**). A similar conclusion can be observed from the last row of the mediation table, where only the two drug-related offences (b = −1.073** and b = −0.677**) are shown to be significant. Coefficients representing letter ‘c’ in the last row of Table 5 show the overall differences of punitive attitudes between the U.S. and Australian respondents (i.e., the sum of direct and indirect effects = a.b + ć).

Discussion

This study is the first to compare Australian and U.S. respondents’ racial animus and then test the hypothesis that racial animus mediates the relation between people's country of residence and their punitive attitudes to sentencing. Our findings show that regardless of respondents’ country, those with higher levels of racial animus are more punitive toward criminal offenders, and this does not change with the type of offence committed. Contrary to our prediction, our cross-cultural comparison revealed that the level of racial animus among Australians is higher when compared to their U.S. counterparts. Finally, the severity of people's racial animus mediated the effect of country (United States vs. Australia) on the severity of punitive attitudes on not only drug-related crimes, but all six crime types examined.

The similarity in punitive attitudes observed between Australian and U.S. samples on crime scenarios except for the two drug-related crimes undermines the case for American exceptionalism and is consistent with some other cross-cultural studies of punitive attitudes (e.g., Kugler et al., 2013). The reasons for the stronger Australian endorsement on the drug-related scenarios are unclear. The extent to which media bias influenced public perceptions may have contributed to our findings. It has been proposed that the laws against drug possession and drug selling are primarily influenced by media bias as opposed to an objective risk assessment (Meier, 1994). In the past decade, there has been detailed Australian media coverage of drug-related offences and harsh sentencing outcomes in Indonesia, which could have influenced findings here. There is also evidence that the United States has remained supportive of rehabilitative responses, despite punitive crime policies (Sundt et al., 2015). It is unknown whether Australians hold more sceptical beliefs concerning the efficacy of drug and alcohol rehabilitation. However, the measurement tool, a rating scale on a continuum with rehabilitation at one end and punishment at the other, may have enabled respondents to express a more nuanced view of the offender in each scenario, which has not afforded them a single item question concerning the death penalty.

The primary objective of the present study is to examine the application of the racial animus model in public support for punitive sentencing in the United States and Australia. Our findings support our first hypothesis that individuals in both countries with higher levels of racial animus will support more punitive sentencing options for offenders of all six crime types examined in this study. The theoretical underpinnings of the racial animus model, the minority group threat hypothesis and racial typification of crime, implies that remediation efforts need to focus on eliminating the association of criminality with cultural minority groups (Weitzer & Tuch, 2005). Our results are consistent with previous work associating support for punitive sentencing with animus toward ethnic minority groups such as Blacks (Bobo & Johnson, 2004; Unnever et al., 2005), Hispanic Americans (Welch et al., 2011), Indigenous Australians (Brookman & Wiener, 2017a), New immigrants (Kornhauser, 2013) and Muslims (Williamson & Murphy, 2020). Our study extends the conceptualising and findings of Unnever and Cullen (2010a) and the replication study by Brown and Socia (2017) by examining different crime types using the punitive–rehabilitative dimensional scale. Given that this measure is more nuanced than earlier measures, it can be used to explore whether punitive attitudes may be contingent on the different crime types (Bartels et al., 2018; Fitzgerald et al., 2020). Our finding indicates that the relationship between racial animus and punitive attitudes remains present, regardless of the type of criminal offence committed. This information was previously unknown and can now inform efforts to reduce punitive attitudes through de-identifying cultural minority groups from “criminal other” without the need to reference specific crime types.

The finding that Australians endorse higher levels of racial animus than respondents in the US does not support our second hypothesis. The lack of support for American exceptionalism is difficult to explain, but may reflect observations that U.S. crime policies are possibly moving away from “tough on crime” to “smart on crime” approaches (Corda & Hester, 2021; Green, 2013, 2015). While the idea of American exceptionalism has been discussed amongst U.S. politicians and commentators for decades (Garland, 2020), our findings are consistent with recent observations that “American exceptionalism is not as embedded in US penal policy and culture as the past few decades might seem to suggest” (Corda & Hester, 2021, p. 203). Our unexpected findings may reflect a move away from mass incarcerations and penal popularism in the United States that is not evident in Australia. In the United States, the period since 2009, the peak of “mass incarcerations” (Cullen, 2018), has been described as a phase of “equilibrium” (Tonry, 2016), with some emerging evidence of “seeds of change” (Corda & Hester, 2021). For example, there is political discourse about the importance of comparative criminology, and questioning the effectiveness of mass incarcerations (Corda & Hester, 2021). A perceived shift in societal and political discourse around criminal justice could be influencing punitive public attitudes in the United States, contributing to the findings reported here. For example, support for the death penalty in the United States decreased slightly (i.e., 4%) between the years 2000 to 2014 (Brown & Socia, 2017). Also, while incarceration and correctional supervision rates are still high in the United States, there has been a 10% decline in overall incarcerations in recent years, together with more reform approaches toward crime (Corda & Hester, 2021).

When interpreting our findings alongside early evidence of penal change in the United States, this raises a question regarding the possibility of Australian (as opposed to American) exceptionalism, at least concerning racial animus and punitive attitudes toward criminal offenders. Findings from the present study raise an important question for Australian politicians and commentators; if Australian exceptionalism does exist, how might this be addressed? The consistent relationship between racial animus and punitive attitudes across different crime types highlights the importance of policymakers considering public racial and ethnic animus when seeking to ameliorate public demand for the harsher punishment of offenders. This task demands consideration of a variety of maintaining factors reinforcing the links between crime and Australia's First Nations people and new immigrants, such as colonial attitudes (unconscious bias), media representations, and systemic racism.

With its roots in social psychology (see Dovidio et al., 1997), the unconscious bias narrative suggests that most people exhibit a strong racial bias, generally from Whites towards racial minority groups (Greenwald & Krieger, 2006). The view of unconscious bias proposes that blatant forms of racism are now more suppressed due to a change in social norms as it is no longer socially acceptable to express racist views (Noon, 2018). This contemporary line of reasoning has resulted in terms such as ‘new racism,’ which refer to more covert and subtle forms of racism that may be unconscious (Barker, 1981; Sniderman et al., 1991). For example, McConnell and Leibold (2001) found research participants displayed more defensive body language when interacting with Black versus White researchers. Also, Fagan et al. (2010) found that Hispanics and non-Hispanic Blacks in New York City were three times more likely to be subject to police stop-and-frisk practices compared to their White counterparts.

Addressing “new racism” in Australia may be a complex process, with many factors embedded in Australia’s history of patriarchal colonisation (see Baldry et al., 2015; Cunneen et al., 2016). Gordimer (2003) posits that the consequences of colonisation have been an inherited sense of White privilege. The Australian public's colonial attitudes toward racial minority groups can be reinforced by government, media, and community representations of criminal “other” (Baldry et al., 2015). As such, Australians may benefit from strategies to “decolonise” unconscious attitudes using the same platforms of influence (Green & Baldry, 2008). We contend that this process begins with recognition of the historical and political contexts unique to Australia. Educational initiatives can assist with understanding colonisation from the perspective of First Nations people, including experiences of dispossession, genocide, and systemic racism within the criminal justice system (Baldry et al., 2015; Blagg, 2007; Cunneen, 2020). It also includes raising awareness of the unique experiences of new immigrants to Australia, for whom there are also known links between racial animus and punitive attitudes (Kornhauser, 2013).

Public perceptions of racial minority groups are influenced by the media, with people from non-White backgrounds historically represented as “other” (Cullen et al., 2012). For example, in the United States, a content analysis of the news presented on three television stations in Florida revealed that Hispanics were more likely to appear as criminal suspects (Chiricos & Eschholz, 2002). It is possible to argue, therefore, that a public that is reliant on the media for its crime information may perceive a threat in relationship to immigrant “other,” which may accentuate public support for punitive sentencing. This suggests a need for culturally sensitive reporting and media content that is aimed at de-identifying racial minority groups from criminality. One assumption of modern racism is that unconscious bias is acquired during childhood and reinforced through media stereotypes (Noon, 2018). Policies aimed at supporting the process of “decolonisation of the mind” (Green & Baldry, 2008) could therefore include initiatives aimed at children that are reinforced through the media. For example, public policies that promote multiculturalism in schools and the media can help to de-identify racial minority groups with ‘criminal other.’ Our cross-national data can contribute to awareness raising by revealing that racial animus is higher in the Australian (vs. the U.S.) public, amongst males, older individuals, people with less education, and does not vary with crime type. Future research could consider an examination of media usage as a potential maintaining factor for the link between racial animus and punitive attitudes.

Systemic racial animus also plays a role in the link between racial animus and punitive attitudes. It occurs when organisations and policies do not attend to the needs of minority racial groups – at times with fatal consequences such as Aboriginal deaths in custody (Macpherson, 1999; McNeilly, 2018). Racial animus within counter-terrorism laws and the criminal justice system is fed by, and in turn feeds, racism within other parts of society (e.g., Blagg et al., 2005). Williamson and Murphy (2020) found that Australians who associate Middle Easterners as terrorists are stronger in their endorsement of punitive counter-terrorism policies. Also, a survey of Australian Muslims found that were viewed as potential terrorists following the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. (Madon et al., 2017). Terrorist threat perception and the link with Middle Easterners could have contributed to the present findings here. Racial animus and public demand for threat reduction could have influenced an increase in Australian counter-terrorism laws (McGarrity & Blackbourn, 2019), which can in turn reinforce minority group threat perception, and higher punitive attitudes. The presence of systemic racism is also evident in the over-representation of Indigenous Australians in the criminal justice system on a scale that cannot be explained by criminogenic factors alone (Blagg et al., 2005). Indigenous inmates have identified systemic racism as problematic in Australian prisons, including overt expressions of racist attitudes and a limited knowledge of the culture of First Nations people (Blagg et al., 2005). However, educational initiatives such as unconscious bias training are commonly employed by organisations (Tate & Page, 2018), and could be further developed to address racial animus within the police, courts, supervision, and prison systems.

An examination of recent cross-national incarnation rates provides a clue to the mediation effect of racial animus observed in our study. Incarceration rates provide one approach to evaluating criminal justice policies (Enns, 2014). For example, the most recent U.S. statistics released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics indicate that the overrepresentation of ethnic minority groups in the US is declining, and the incarceration of Blacks is the lowest since 1989 (Carson, 2020). Further, the incarceration rates (2008 to 2018) decreased by 21% for Hispanic residents, 28% for Black U.S. residents, and just 13% for Whites. In contrast, the most recent Australian statistics reveal an inversed increasing pattern in the incarnation rates of racial minority groups. Over a similar period (2008 to 2017), the incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians increased by 40% (ABS, 2019), with First Nations people surpassing African Americans as the most incarcerated people in the world (Anthony, 2017). While incarceration rates provide only one example of systemic racism, comparative studies have shown that cross-national differences in incarceration rates are also associated with various aspects of nation's political economy (Lacey et al., 2018), such as differences in levels of income inequality (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009), and state welfare regimes (Cavadino & Dignan, 2013). While outlining the broader areas of reform is beyond the scope of the present paper, efforts to address public racial animus must include “culturally responsive penal reform initiatives in correctional settings and post-release services” (Baldry et al., 2015, p. 169). Domains of social disadvantage – health, housing, and employment – can be simultaneously addressed through improved forms of partnership at all levels of government with racial minority groups experiencing social disadvantage (Blagg et al., 2005).

Limitations and future directions

There are several methodological aspects to our study that could have influenced the findings reported here. For example, recruitment via SONA and social media holds the risk of a self-selection bias whereby only those individuals interested in criminology may have self-selected to participate in the study. As a preliminary study, our sample size was sufficient to reveal significant effects and was suitable for the statistical analyses reported here. However, a threat to the generalisation of these findings is the use of a convenience sample of students and participants with computer and social media access that may not be fully representative of the community. However, it is worth noting that these limitations applied similarly to both the U.S. and Australian samples in this study. A census-representative sample of the U.S. and Australian population would increase the confidence with which our findings are interpreted.

The measures of racial animus required explicit responses from participants, requiring self-reported endorsement of negative attitudes toward an ethnic minority group. Future research could consider examining potential cross-national differences in covert forms of racism by including measures such as the Harvard Implicit Association Test (Greenwald et al., 1998). Also, we did not include comparisons of racial animus toward different racial minority groups nor obtain participants own racial background beyond the broad category groups of White and non-White. A larger sample size would have enabled us to conduct more detailed ethnic subgroup comparisons within each country. Future research could consider obtaining this information to gain further insights into racial animus and cross-cultural differences in punitive attitudes.

Conclusion

This is the first study to compare racial animus across the United States and Australia to find that animus mediates the relation between country and public demand for the punishment of criminal offenders. A cross-cultural comparison also revealed that Australians not only endorse the punishment of offenders of drug-related crimes more than U.S. respondents, but they also endorse more animus towards ethnic minority groups. This, together with the association between racial animus and punitive attitudes, provides evidence for the importance of racial animus in understanding the public's demand for harsher sentencing options. Future research examining cross-cultural differences could consider using a census representative sample to increase the confidence with which findings are interpreted.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Ruth Brookman

Karl Wiener

Appendix A: Racial Animus Measures

Measures	Items	Response options
Modern Racism Scale	1. Discrimination against people of different ethnic backgrounds is no longer a problem in this country.	1 (Strongly disagree) to 5 (Strongly agree)
	2. It is easy to understand the anger of people of different ethnic backgrounds in this country.
	3. People of different ethnic backgrounds have more influence upon government policies than they ought to.
	4. People of other different ethnic backgrounds are getting too demanding in their push for rights.
	5. People of other different ethnic backgrounds should not push themselves where they are not wanted.
	6. Over the past few years, people of different ethnic backgrounds have received more economic benefits than they deserve.
	7. Over the past few years, the government and news media have shown more respect to people of different ethnic backgrounds than they deserve.

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