scholarly journals Perceptions About Sexual Offenses: Misconceptions, Punitiveness, and Public Sentiment

2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 254-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura L. King
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Sex Offenders ◽  
Sexual Offending ◽  
Punitive Attitudes ◽  
The Public ◽  
Sexual Offenses ◽  
Public Sentiment ◽  
High Level

Decades of research on public opinion about crime reveal varying, yet relatively punitive attitudes that are often riddled with misconceptions. Sparked by the increased media and legislative attention devoted to sex offenders beginning in the 1990s, researchers began to more closely examine public opinion about sexual offenses. Findings suggest the public adheres to several misconceptions about sexual offenses and supports harsh sanctions for offenders. However, further research is warranted to more closely examine the relationships among these variables. Thus, the goal of the present study was to survey Pennsylvania residents to examine the degree to which misconceptions about sexual offenses inform punitiveness. The results supported the hypotheses in that a high level of support for misconceptions and punitiveness was identified, and adherence to misconceptions was the strongest predictor of punitiveness. These findings demonstrate a clear need for educational and awareness efforts to dispel public misconceptions about sexual offending and victimization.

scholarly journals Countering COVID-19: A European survey on acceptability of and commitment to preventive measures

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
I Sabat ◽  
N Elsem Varghese ◽  
S Neuman-Böhme ◽  
P Pita Barros ◽  
W Brouwer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Sentiment ◽  
Policy Measures ◽  
People’S Attitudes ◽  
High Level ◽  
Movement Tracking ◽  
Representative Samples

Abstract To understand the public sentiment toward the measures used by policymakers for COVID-19 containment, a survey among representative samples of the population in seven European countries was carried out in the first two weeks of April 2020. The study addressed people's support for containment policies, worries about COVID-19 consequences, and trust in sources of information. Citizens were overall satisfied with their government's response to the pandemic; however, the extent of approval differed across countries and policy measures. A north-south divide in public opinion was noticeable across the European states. It was particularly pronounced for intrusive policy measures, such as mobile data use for movement tracking, economic concerns, and trust in the information from the national government. Considerable differences in people's attitudes were noticed within countries, especially across individual regions and age groups. The findings suggest that the epidemic acts as a stressor, causing health and economic anxieties even in households that were not directly affected by the virus. At the same time, the burden of stress was unequally distributed across regions and age groups. Based on the data collected, we draw lessons from the containment stage and identify several insights that can facilitate the design of lockdown exit strategies and future containment policies so that a high level of compliance can be expected. Key messages Citizens were overall satisfied with their government's response to the COVID-19 outbreak. A north-south pattern in public opinion was observed across the European states.

Has Anyone Seen It?

2012 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dagmar Radin ◽  
Aleksandar Džakula
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Sentiment ◽  
Public Opinion Surveys ◽  
Health Care Performance ◽  
Policy Arena ◽  
Care Performance

Over the past decade, public opinion surveys have shown that Croats are deeply dissatisfied with their health care system and asses it to be one of the most important issues. However, health care hardly makes it into any political discourse in Croatia. This study analyzes the results of a public opinion survey conducted before the 2007 parliamentary elections to find out what the public sentiment on health care performance in Croatia is and to analyze the reasons why health care is not addressed by political actors. Evidence suggests that while health care is the most salient issue today, the public often understands it poorly. Thus, in a political environment of competing issues, and given the complexity of tacking health care in the policy arena, politicians strategically avoid discussing the issue.

Revealing public opinion towards COVID-19 vaccines with Twitter data in the United States: a spatiotemporal perspective (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tao Hu ◽  
Siqin Wang ◽  
Wei Luo ◽  
Mengxi Zhang ◽  
Xiao Huang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
The United States ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Sentiment ◽  
Spatiotemporal Trends ◽  
The Us ◽  
Key Events

BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed a large, initially uncontrollable, public health crisis both in the US and across the world, with experts looking to vaccines as the ultimate mechanism of defense. The development and deployment of COVID-19 vaccines have been rapidly advancing via global efforts. Hence, it is crucial for governments, public health officials, and policy makers to understand public attitudes and opinions towards vaccines, such that effective interventions and educational campaigns can be designed to promote vaccine acceptance OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to investigate public opinion and perception on COVID-19 vaccines by investigating the spatiotemporal trends of their sentiment and emotion towards vaccines, as well as how such trends relate to popular topics on Twitter in the US METHODS We collected over 300,000 geotagged tweets in the US from March 1, 2020 to February 28, 2021. We examined the spatiotemporal patterns of public sentiment and emotion over time at both national and state scales and identified three phases along the pandemic timeline with the significant changes of public sentiment and emotion, further linking to eleven key events and major topics as the potential drivers to induce such changes via cloud mapping of keywords and topic modelling RESULTS An increasing trend of positive sentiment in parallel with the decrease of negative sentiment are generally observed in most states, reflecting the rising confidence and anticipation of the public towards vaccines. The overall tendency of the eight types of emotion implies the trustiness and anticipation of the public to vaccination, accompanied by the mixture of fear, sadness and anger. Critical social/international events and/or the announcements of political leaders and authorities may have potential impacts on the public opinion on vaccines. These factors, along with important topics and manual reading of popular posts on eleven key events, help identify underlying themes and validate insights from the analysis CONCLUSIONS The analyses of near real-time social media big data benefit public health authorities by enabling them to monitor public attitudes and opinions towards vaccine-related information in a geo-aware manner, address the concerns of vaccine skeptics and promote the confidence of individuals within a certain region or community, towards vaccines

Research on Key Technology of Internet Public Sentiment

2014 ◽  
Vol 926-930 ◽  
pp. 2030-2033
Author(s):  
De Zhi An ◽  
Yun Ke
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Natural Science ◽  
Hot Spot ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Public Opinion Research ◽  
Key Technology ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Sentiment ◽  
The Status

Public opinion research is a new internet discipline of social science and natural science. As a hot spot of public opinion research, the research on the public opinion on the Internet has attracted much attention. By analyzing the status of the research on the public opinion on the Internet in China, this paper establishes the basic framework of the research on the public opinion on the Internet. Then some key technology issues are researched in detail. Based on the method and key technology, the paper introduces the design and implement about the platform of Internet Public Sentiment. This paper is expected to have the value to apply the Internet public sentiment analysis.

An Opportunity View of Child Sexual Offending: Investigating Nonpersuasion and Circumstances of Offending Through Criminological Lens

Sexual Abuse ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (7) ◽  
pp. 869-882 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benoit Leclerc ◽  
Jean Proulx
Keyword(s):  
Sex Offenders ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Sexual Offenders ◽  
Sexual Offending ◽  
Sexual Contact ◽  
Sex Offending ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
Sexual Activities ◽  
Sexual Offenses ◽  
Reported Data

The empirical evidence indicating that sexual offenders against children manipulate their victims to participate in sexual activities dominates the literature on sex offenders and their modus operandi. However, recent evidence suggests that a high proportion of these offenders do not try to persuade their victims for sexual contact in the first place by using coercion or manipulation but simply assault them when an opportunity arises. Using self-reported data from a sample of incarcerated adult sexual offenders against children, we investigate whether sexual offenses against children committed by the use of nonpersuasion are characterized by little planning and by offense features that are indicative of opportunistic offending. We also examine the interaction between the type of offending strategy and the context of abuse. Findings reveal that offenders using nonpersuasion do not seek out potential victims, but rather seize an opportunity to offend. The type of offending strategy also interacts with the context of abuse for most preoffense and offense variables. These interactions are informative of the conditions favoring opportunistic sex offending against children.

A comparative analysis of Australian sex offender legislation for sex offender registries

2011 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 404-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Vess ◽  
Brooke Langskaill ◽  
Andrew Day ◽  
Martine Powell ◽  
Joe Graffam
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Sex Offenders ◽  
Sexual Offenders ◽  
Sex Offender ◽  
Sexual Offending ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Perceived Threat ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
The Public ◽  
English Speaking

Australia has followed the course taken by other English-speaking countries in recent years of enacting legislation that requires convicted sexual offenders to register personal details with law enforcement agencies. These laws have been enacted to protect the public from the perceived threat posed by sex offenders, but have been written with little apparent reference to the available research literature about the nature and extent of this threat. In addition, there is no empirical evidence supporting the effectiveness of legislatively based sex offender registries to either reduce sexual offending or to enable the police to investigate sex crimes and apprehend offenders. This article compares and contrasts the current laws governing sex offender registration enacted by the various states and territories in Australia, and offers a critical analysis of their provisions in light of the research literature on sexual offending.

The Proportion of Sexual Offenders Who Are Female Is Higher Than Thought

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franca Cortoni ◽  
Kelly M. Babchishin ◽  
Clémence Rat
Keyword(s):  
Juvenile Offenders ◽  
Sex Offenders ◽  
Sexual Offenders ◽  
Sexual Offending ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Fixed Effect ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Female Sexual Offenders ◽  
Sexual Offenses ◽  
Adult Sex Offenders

Women commit sexual offenses, but the proportion of sexual offenders who are female is subject to debates. Based on 17 samples from 12 countries, the current meta-analysis found that a small proportion of sexual offenses reported to police are committed by females (fixed-effect meta-analytical average = 2.2%). In contrast, victimization surveys indicated prevalence rates of female sexual offenders that were six times higher than official data (fixed-effect meta-analytical average = 11.6%). Female sexual offenders are more common among juvenile offenders than adult offenders, with approximately 2 percentage points more female juvenile sex offenders than female adult sex offenders. We also found that males were much more likely to self-report being victimized by female sex offenders compared with females (40% vs. 4%). The current study provides a robust estimate of the prevalence of female sexual offending, using a large sample of sexual offenses across diverse countries.

scholarly journals Revealing public opinion towards COVID-19 vaccines using Twitter data in the United States: a spatiotemporal perspective

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tao Hu ◽  
Siqin Wang ◽  
Wei Luo ◽  
Yingwei Yan ◽  
Mengxi Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Sentiment ◽  
Spatiotemporal Trends ◽  
The Us ◽  
Key Events

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed a large, initially uncontrollable, public health crisis both in the United States (US) and across the world, with experts looking to vaccines as the ultimate mechanism of defense. The development and deployment of COVID-19 vaccines have been rapidly advancing via global efforts. Hence, it is crucial for governments, public health officials, and policy makers to understand public attitudes and opinions towards vaccines, such that effective interventions and educational campaigns can be designed to promote vaccine acceptance. Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate public opinion and perception on COVID-19 vaccines by investigating the spatiotemporal trends of their sentiment and emotion towards vaccines, as well as how such trends relate to popular topics on Twitter in the US. Methods: We collected over 300,000 geotagged tweets in the US from March 1, 2020 to February 28, 2021. We examined the spatiotemporal patterns of public sentiment and emotion over time at both national and state scales and identified three phases along the pandemic timeline with the significant changes of public sentiment and emotion. We further linked the changes to eleven key events and major topics as the potential drivers to induce such changes via cloud mapping of keywords and topic modeling. Results: An increasing trend of positive sentiment in parallel with the decrease of negative sentiment are generally observed in most states, reflecting the rising confidence and anticipation of the public towards COVID-19 vaccines. The overall tendency of the eight types of emotion implies the trustiness and anticipation of the public to vaccination, accompanied by the mixture of fear, sadness and anger. Critical social/international events and/or the announcements of political leaders and authorities may have potential impacts on the public opinion on vaccines. These factors, along with important topics and manual reading of popular posts on eleven key events, help identify underlying themes and validate insights from the analysis. Conclusions: The analyses of near real-time social media big data benefit public health authorities by enabling them to monitor public attitudes and opinions towards vaccine-related information in a geo-aware manner, address the concerns of vaccine skeptics and promote the confidence of individuals within a certain region or community, towards vaccines.

Public Opinion About #MeToo Victims and Offenders: A Nationwide Experiment

2021 ◽  
pp. 107780122110548
Author(s):  
Luzi Shi
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Public Reporting ◽  
Factorial Survey ◽  
Punitive Attitudes ◽  
Sexual Assault Survivors ◽  
The Public ◽  
Perceived Credibility ◽  
Survey Results ◽  
Assault Victims

During the #MeToo movement, many sexual assault survivors are discredited because of their delay in disclosure or failure to report to the police. The current study investigates which factors influence public opinion towards sexual assault victims and offenders by analyzing data from a national factorial survey. Results show disclosing the offense immediately to the public, reporting to the police, and having a witness are positively related to punitive attitudes towards the offender, via increased perceived credibility of the victim. The results highlight the importance of understanding extralegal factors in shaping stereotypic views about sexual assault in the #MeToo era.

Bohaterowie czy antybohateriowie? Medialne wcielenia monarchów a problem „rozpadu” Hiszpanii

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (49) ◽  
pp. 70-81
Author(s):  
Maja Biernacka
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Royal Family ◽  
Media Images ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Face ◽  
Financial Scandals ◽  
The Media ◽  
High Level

The article is dedicated to the media images of the Spanish Bourbon monarchy, especially the King Felipe VI and his wife Letizia, accompanied with an analysis of their role as (super) heroes or antiheroes of the nation. The author presents the problem of their standing in the public opinion in the face of participation of the royal family members in numerous political, sex and financial scandals, but also general crisis of the monarchy in Spain. Additional factors which make the King’s role of a superhero infeasible is a high level of contestation of the national idea in the society and augmenting secessionist tendencies, especially in Catalonia. In the atmosphere of probable disintegration of the Spanish state the monarch is unable to take substantial measures but remains obliged to make reference to them in his ceremonial public statements.

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