The Power of Story: Assessing Crime Attribution before and After Watching Videos of Incarcerated People Serving Life Without Parole Sentences

Objectives: To test the impacts of watching an interview of an incarcerated person serving a life without parole sentence on participants’ views of crime attribution. Methods: Survey participants answered questions related to several topics, including crime attribution, before and after watching a randomly-assigned video of an incarcerated person discussing their personal narrative. Videos varied according to the race of the incarcerated person and their self-described personal circumstances before arrest. Results: Videos where difficult circumstances were presented or where the subject was Black elicited more situational views of crime. Political Independents also held more situational views post-intervention. Before any intervention, men, Republicans, older people, and wealthier people held more dispositional views of crime, whereas Atheists held much more situational views. Conclusions: Videos depicting the lived experiences of incarcerated people can change public attribution style, but only when the video depicts a person whose criminality can be linked to their personal circumstances.