The Oprahization of America: Sympathetic crime talk and leniency

Respondents were exposed to a series of talk-show programs (all from the Op rah Winfrey Show) on crime and alternative issues and later, in a purported ly unrelated study, asked to make punitive recommendations for offenders co nvicted of various nonviolent and violent crimes. The programs differed in that (a) two featured criminal cases in which the offenders and their sympa thizers were allowed to provide crime-mitigating information, (b) two other s presented the same cases with the mitigating information removed, and (c) two reported situations unrelated to crime. Punitiveness toward criminal o ffenders was significantly lower after exposure to crime-mitigating program s than after exposure to programs unrelated to crime. This effect was obser ved for both nonviolent and violent crime.