Public opinion and the politics of collateral consequence policies
| Published date | 01 April 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1462474520941942 |
| Date | 01 April 2021 |
| Author | Kevin H Wozniak,Travis Johnston |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Public opinion and the
politics of collateral
consequence policies
Travis Johnston and Kevin H Wozniak
University of Massachusetts Boston, USA
Abstract
We analyze data from a national sample of the U.S. population to assess public support
for policies that deny former offenders’ access to job training programs, food stamps,
and public housing. We find that Americans generally oppose benefit restrictions,
though support for these policies is higher among Republicans and people with
higher levels of racial resentment. We also find that a legislator’s criminal justice
reform positions generally do not significantly affect voters’ evaluation of him or her,
and even voters with more punitive attitudes toward collateral consequence policies
support legislators who advance particular kinds of reform proposals. These findings
provide little evidence that any group of Americans would be mobilized to vote against
a legislator who works to reform collateral consequence policies. We discuss the
implications of these findings for American and comparative studies of the politics of
punishment.
Keywords
collateral consequences, framing, invisible punishments, politics, public opinion, racism,
welfare
Introduction
One of the most notable developments in early twenty-first century American
politics is the emergence of bipartisan support for criminal justice reform
(Dagan and Teles, 2016; Percival, 2015). In the midst of an historic crime decline,
Corresponding author:
Kevin H Wozniak, University of Massachusetts Boston, 100 Morrissey Blvd., Boston, MA 02125-3393, USA.
Email: kevin.wozniak@umb.edu
Punishment & Society
2021, Vol. 23(2) 190–217
!The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1462474520941942
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Americans are less concerned about crime than they were during the 1970s, 80s,
and 90 s (Miller, 2016), and mass public support for punitive punishments has also
ebbed considerably (Enns, 2016; Ramirez, 2013). Consistent with theories
of “dynamic representation” (Caughey and Warshaw, 2018; Stimson et al.,
1995), scholars theorize that this decline in public punitiveness gives legislators
“breathing room” to enact reform without fearing a “soft on crime” backlash
at the voting booth.
However, sentencing laws are just the tip of the iceberg of the “carceral state”
(Gottschalk, 2016). Alexander (2012) draws particular attention to the web of laws
that impose collateral consequences upon people with criminal records above and
beyond their official punishment. She states, “A criminal record today authorizes
precisely the forms of discrimination we supposedly left behind [after the Civil
Rights Movement]—discrimination in employment, housing, education, public
benefits, and jury service” (p. 141). Her critique of these collateral consequences
forms the center of her argument that the carceral state is a contemporary system
of racial segregation. The nature of collateral consequence policies is also a key
point of contrast between the U.S. and Europe. Though several European nations
do curtail the rights of some felons in a manner similar to the collateral conse-
quences of U.S. punishment, there are critical differences. European “ancillary
penalties” are determined by courts and imposed on a case-by-case basis as part
of an offender’s sentence. In contrast, U.S. courts have largely determined collat-
eral consequences to be civil in nature and not subject to criminal due process
considerations, and they are imposed upon entire classes of felons in a blanket
manner (Corda, 2018).
American legislative attention to collateral consequence reform is an even more
recent phenomenon than attention to sentencing reform. While reform of collateral
consequence policies does appear to be gaining momentum at the state level,
legislators have predominantly focused on curtailing felon disenfranchisement
and enacting policies to make it more difficult, but not illegal, for employers to
discriminate against felons (Love and Schlussel, 2020). Similarly, scholars who
study public opinion about collateral consequences have devoted most of their
attention to felon disenfranchisement (e.g. Chiricos et al., 2012; Manza et al.,
2004; Wilson et al., 2015) or policies specific to sex offenders (e.g. Comartin
et al., 2009; Mancini, 2014; Socia et al., 2017). As Owens and Smith (2012) and
Whittle (2018) observed, both policymakers and scholars have devoted less atten-
tion to the much broader classes of collateral consequences that deny benefits to
offenders convicted of many different types of crimes, but especially those con-
victed of nonviolent drug offenses (the primary targets of 1990s policies that lim-
ited or denied access to food stamps and public housing) (see also Alexander, 2012;
Middlemass, 2017; Rade et al., 2016). As such, we know less about the public’s
support for collateral consequence policies that deny felons’ access to the welfare
state, which limits our ability to gauge politicians’ opportunity to reform these
policies without provoking public backlash.
Johnston and Wozniak 191
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