Locked in a Box: How Activist Art Affects Opinions about Solitary Confinement

Does exposure to activist political art influence citizens' beliefs about solitary confinement? This research uniquely assesses the impact of exposure to an art exhibition on support for solitary confinement. It utilizes an experimental research design that involved randomly assigning half of the participants to enter a public art installment replicating a solitary confinement prison cell prior to completing a survey that measured opinions about the use of this practice. We find that participants who entered the art exhibition for a short amount of time were less likely to support solitary confinement. We also analyze how the political, demographic, and attitudinal characteristics of respondents, influence the impact of the artistic intervention on attitudes about solitary confinement. We find evidence that gender, race, political ideology, and pre-existing attitudes about government and the criminal justice system are strongly associated with opinions about the use of solitary confinement.