Judging justice-involved individuals: support for job offer rescindment, character evaluations and norm violations across transgression types

Two within-subjects experimental studies examined support for rescinding job offers and evaluations of character and social appropriateness for applicants with justice-involvement or other transgressions, manipulated using vignettes. Participants were primarily Australian adults recruited via a university research participation platform and social media. In Study 1 (N = 194; 149 female, 40 male, three non-binary, 40 missing; M age = 34.40, SD = 12.10), an applicant with an unspecified justice-involved history received greater support for offer rescindment than applicants with drug or alcohol use histories and was evaluated more negatively overall. In Study 2 (N = 125; 99 female, 22 male, three non-binary, one missing; M age = 29.66, SD = 13.21), an applicant with a sexual offending history was judged most harshly across all measures compared to violent and drug offending applicants. Overall, findings indicate that justice-involved applicants – particularly those with sexual offences – face elevated stigma and greater reintegration challenges.