Can Deep Canvassing Promote Anti-Carceral Attitudes? A Field Experiment

Abstract

Passing and implementing policies that will advance racial equity requires adequate levels of public support. Yet, interventions designed to inform citizens and cultivate such support are rarely successful, especially on highly salient, racialized issues like incarceration and policing. This challenge is further amplified when explicitly discussing racism, which often triggers adverse reactions or backlash. We conducted a pre-registered, randomized, placebo-controlled field experiment making use of deep canvassing conversations—an intensive intervention that has proven effective in shifting views on other highly salient issues. Half of our treatment conversations explicitly discussed anti-Black racism in the criminal legal system, while the other half took a race-absent approach. Outcomes were assessed across three follow-up surveys. We found that both deep canvassing conditions increased support for jail decarceration and other anti-carceral policies. These effects were evident 1 week after the intervention but were limited in their durability after exposure to a counter message and after 6 months post-treatment. Given the general lack of effective persuasion methods in real-world contexts that can endure for even a week, deep canvassing continues to prove a promising method. In contrast to prior research commonly demonstrating null or backlash results from discussing racism, these findings suggest that there are ways to discuss racism that can effectively build support for racial equity policies and change related attitudes. Deep canvassing is not a panacea. Understanding the tradeoffs and limitations of both race-explicit and race-absent approaches helps to inform the strategic choices of organizers, advocates, and scholars.