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The study provides a qualitative analysis of 300 real estate agent responses to telephone calls from researchers posing as convicted felons and inquiring about renting an apartment. Telephone calls were made to real estate agents in New York State and primarily in New York City. Criminal conviction type was manipulated across callers who revealed three types of prior convictions: child molestation, statutory rape, or drug trafficking. Analyses indicate that decisions about renting fall within a continuum of responses, including overt rejection, deferral of rental decision to landlords, ambivalence on the part of the agent, concerns about financial ability to pay rent, and concealing the caller’s offense from the landlord. Reasons for acceptance and rejection of renting an apartment are explored. The stigmatized status of offenders appears to have contributed to the variations in the real estate agents responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research was conducted on variations and commonalities of sexual offenders and heroin abusers and how they manage stigma in their everyday lives. Interviews with 13 sex offenders (SOs) and 44 heroin abusers (HAs) were conducted in New York City. Results suggest that both SOs and HAs disclose or conceal their stigmatized status based on their relationship to others and the situations in which they anticipate social condemnation. Both groups have formed intra-group hierarchies based on status, where child molesters and heroin abusers receive the most disdain. Some heroin abusers manage their stigma by engaging in behavior that we termredemptive passing, in which stigmatized individuals attempt to pass as non-stigmatized through deceptive means in order to make amends for prior harms they have caused. The stigmatization of sex offenders and heroin abusers has important implications for health, as members of these groups are less likely to seek treatment in order to distance themselves from their stigmatizing status. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]