Research

Social sources of crime (mis)perceptions

Is crime salience a reflection of the crime rate, or manipulated by political rhetoric and media coverage of crime?
My coauthors and I use time series and hierarchical age-period-cohort (HAPC) analyses to investigate if the public salience of crime reflects the crime rate, or is manipulated by the political rhetoric and media coverage of crime. We find that crime salience varies mostly at the period level; crime salience trends are parallel across demographic, socioeconomic, and partisan groups; and crime salience trends within every population subgroup the crime rate does not exert a significant effect. This first-authored paper has been published in Criminology.

Does media consumption cause the public to believe that crime is always worsening?
My coauthors and I have evaluated the longstanding claim that media is responsible for the public's misunderstanding that the crime rate is always increasing. We use ordinary least squares, fixed effects, and dynamic panel models to analyze data from the American National Election Studies. We find that online news consumption is not related to crime trend perceptions in any of these models. Although newspaper and TV news consumption are related to crime trend perceptions in pooled OLS models, the relationship is nonsignificant in other models. The results question the cultivation effect of media that has been shown from previous sectional studies. This first-authored paper has been published in Deviant Behavior.

What is the relationship between media consumption and international students' fear of crime?
International students bring in multifold benefits to the education host countries. Fear of crime may harm the students' mental and physical health and undermine their educational achievements. Drawing on an original sample of 398 international students in the U.S., I find that international students are more fearful in the U.S. than in their home countries. Results from structural equation models (SEM) suggest that attention paid to crime news is positively related to fear in the U.S., through perceived victimization risk. Exposure to non-U.S. social media (e.g., WeChat and Weibo) is positively related to respondents’ fear of crime, whereas exposure to U.S. social media (e.g., Facebook and Twitter) is not related to fear of crime. This sole-authored paper has been published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence.

information treatment

Does exposure to accurate information about the crime rate change crime trend perceptions and willingness to offend?
Economists and psychologists have found that people tend to follow descriptive norms (what others do). Accordingly, the view that an increasing number of people engage in crime may increase the accept- ability of criminal choices to individuals. Utilizing a randomized experiment embedded in an original online survey, I find that though perceptions of rising crime trends and willingness to offend are not directly related, exposure to accurate crime information reduces willingness to offend among respondents who initially perceive rising crime trend in the short term. This sole-authored paper has been published in the Journal of Crime and Justice.

Does exposure to accurate information about the crime rate change crime trend perceptions and support for punitive criminal justice policies?
Public punitiveness is closely related to the expansion of the U.S. penal system. In a sole-authored study, I investigate if exposure to accurate crime information reduces anger about and fear of crime and thereby reduces public punitiveness, and the interconnections between crime trend perceptions, negative emotions, and punitive attitudes. Results show that perceptions of rising crime trends were related to punitiveness both directly and indirectly through anger about crime. Exposure to accurate crime information did not alleviate anger about or fear of crime, but, surprisingly, increased support for punitive criminal justice policies. This paper is forthcoming at Journal of Experimental Criminology.

Public opinion about gender and sexual assault

What factors influence the public's attitudes towards #MeToo victims and offenders?
In a completed sole-authored study that is currently under review, I analyze data from a national factorial survey and investigate what factors influence the public's perceived credibility of alleged sexual assault victims and punitiveness towards sexual assault offenders. I also investigate the influence of political ideology on public opinion.

Is the gender gap in fear of crime narrowing or widening?
In a study that is currently under review, my coauthors and I examine gender differences in fear of crime in the U.S. over the past five decades. Results suggest the gender gap is narrowing across time. Both the period-level changes in violent crime rates, suburbanization and the cohort differences in gender ideology have significant influence on the decline of women’s fear of crime.

What factors influence public opinion about people who use spy-cams to make pornography?
In East Asian nations including South Korea and China, women are protesting against people who use spy-cams to make pornography. I am collaborating with researchers from South Korea and the U.S. to develop survey experiments to investigate what factors influence the Korean and Chinese public's attitudes towards this movement.

PUBLIC Opinion about corrections, Reentry, and stigma

What factors influence public opinion about hiring people with criminal records?
In an ongoing project, I am collaborating with a colleague and developing a national survey experiment to examine under what conditions the public supports or opposes hiring people with criminal records.
The research uses the theoretical framework of courtesy stigma and contributes to reducing the collateral consequences of mass incarceration.

Does the public hold stigmatized views towards prisoners regarding COVID-19 infection, vaccination, and visitation?
In an ongoing project, I am collaborating with two colleagues on a national survey experiment to examine under if the public holds stigmatized views about prisoners during a global pandemic. The research uses the theoretical framework of moral beliefs in evil and redemptive violence.

PUBLIC Opinion about CRIMMIGRATION

Is public opinion about crimmigration discriminatory and selective?
In an ongoing study, I am using a factorial survey to examine the extent of natives' willingness to punish immigrants, and if public opinion about crimmigration is discriminatory and selective based on immigrants' region of origin and legal status. The study is motivated by interdisciplinary work including group contact and group threat theories, social identity theory, racial animus theory, moral foundations theory, social construction theory, relative group position theory, self-categorization theory, stereotype amplification theory, and racial priming theory.

Public opinion about Protests and Policing

Does public opinion differ towards protestors and police officers involved in BLM and MAGA protests ?
I am collaborating with a colleague to analyze if citizens' empathy and punitiveness towards protestors involved in Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests and Make American Great Again (MAFA) protests differ based on their beliefs in political identity and morality. The study uses a factorial survey design.

Public opinion about crime and criminal justice in china

Does public opinion matter to the Chinese criminal justice system?
I am collaborating with scholars in China and the U.S. to to examine Chinese law enforcement officials’ perceptions when faced with public grievances about crime and criminal justice. I will use a factorial survey and the theoretical framework of audience legitimacy.

PUBLIC OPINION AND Medical sociology

What factors influence Chinese doctors' fear of crime?
In some recent reports, Chinese doctors are subject to criminal victimization inflicted by their patients and the family members of the patients. Some hospitals are taking extreme measures to protect the safety of medical personnel. I am developing a survey with colleagues to survey Chinese doctors' fear of crime.

AND MORE

You can check out my other co-authored papers, in which I am not the lead author, in my CV. I am always happy to collaborate and work with a team. If you are interested in collaboration or have any questions about my published and ongoing projects, please feel free to send me an email (lshi@bridgew.edu).

Thank you!