Politicians in the United States frequently cite public anger when they attack "country-club" conditions in prisons.
Politicians in the United States frequently cite public anger when they attack "country-club" conditions in prisons. Despite the ubiquity of this rhetoric, it is backed by limited empirical support. Few studies measure American citizens' attitudes toward prison conditions, and even fewer studies do so with data from random samples of the population. To address this limitation in our knowledge, I measure public perceptions of life in prison and opinions about the appropriate severity of punishment in prison with data from an original public opinion survey administered to a national sample of the U.S. population. I find that a plurality of respondents both perceive life in prison to be unpleasant and voice the opinion that life in prison should be harsher still. I contextualize these findings within the broader study of public opinion about punishment. Abstract published by arrangement with Sage.