Attitudes towards the punishment permanent prison revisable and its relationship with the authoritarianism

Abstract

Background: The penalty of revisable permanent prison (PPPR) is a custodial sentence approved in 2015 by the Spanish Government. Athoritarianism represents a style of personality characterized by exercising a form of oppressive power lacking in will and freedom. In the present study, both constructs are related in order to determine if there is a correlation between a favorable attitude to this punishment and authoritarian personality.

Method: Three scales (The F Scale, RWA and adapted Attitude Scale) are applied to 156 subjects chosen through incidental probabilistic selection, with ages ranging from 18 to 83 years old (M=31.256, DT=12.77), including their education level and political orientation.

Results and conclusions: It is observed that, to a greater authoritarian aggression, there will a favorable attitude towards this punishment. The results show higher scores in authoritarianism in extreme political ideology positions, also in the older age groups; in relation to the attitude towards the PPPR, a favorable position is observed in the older group. The implications at a psychosocial level of these findings are discussed.