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Public Opinion on the Harshness of Local Courts: An Experimental Test of Question Wording Effects
Abstract
Drawing on framing theory, the present study tests the impact of question wording on people’s reported opinions about the harshness of their local courts. A randomized experimental design tested two salient variations against the standard wording used in the National Opinion Research Center’s General Social Survey (GSS). The results indicated statistically significant differences, with fewer respondents expressing a desire for greater harshness with the alternative forms than the standard question form. Four of the five correlates that the authors examined also showed differential relationships with punitiveness among the question forms. These findings suggest that scholars should carefully consider the meaning of people’s responses when interpreting the GSS question as an indicator of public punitiveness.
... Respondents were then given the space to explain their answers. It is possible that the specific questions used in this survey informed the responses from participants (Applegate & Sanborn, 2011). Yet, arguably, this approach yields a necessary baseline understanding regarding public attitudes for an under-explored topic. ...
Extensive research has explored public confidence in the criminal justice system and opinions about punishment, but less research has explored attitudes about criminal justice errors, including error related to race and racism. Drawing on the theory of colorblind racism, the current study examines attitudes about whether systemic racism exists in the criminal justice system and, if so, how the issue can best be addressed. Specifically, we examine the rhetoric respondents use to describe the role of systemic racism in the criminal justice system, paying particular attention to the presence of colorblind rhetorical frames. Findings indicate that although a majority of respondents believe systemic racism exists, many respondents attribute the problem to specific individuals or policies rather than institutions and organizations. Moreover, those who believe systemic racism does not exist often rely on colorblind rhetorical frames that justify or minimize existing racial disparities in criminal justice outcomes. These findings suggest reasons for optimism regarding efforts to address racial injustice as well as some potential obstacles.
... Once respondents began the survey, they were randomly assigned to certain subsets of questions (Studies 1-3), and then some details of the vignettes and the questions in those subsets were also randomized. Specifically, Studies 2 and 3 are split-ballot experiments, which are used in a variety of fields to evaluate measurement, such as testing the effect of the use of neutral categories, "don't know" options, question wording, and question ordering (see Applegate & Sanborn, 2011;Smith, 1987;Van De Walle & Van Ryzin, 2011). Each sample is mutually exclusive-that is, each respondent was randomly assigned to participate in only one study. ...
Do people think about offending risk in verbal or numerical terms? Does the elicitation method affect reported subjective probabilities? Rational choice models require potential outcomes (e.g., benefits/costs) to be weighted by their probability of occurrence. Indeed, the subjective likelihood of being apprehended is the central construct in criminological deterrence theory—the so-called certainty principle. Yet, extant literature has measured the construct inconsistently and with little attention to potential consequences. Using a series of randomized experiments conducted with nationwide samples of American adults (18 and over), this study examines the degree of correspondence between verbal and numeric measures of apprehension risk, assesses the durability of numeric estimates specifically, and attempts to elicit how respondents naturally think about apprehension risk. The findings suggest that laypeople are somewhat inconsistent in their use of both verbal and numeric descriptors of probability of apprehension, their numeric estimates of probability are unlikely to be precise or durable, and many seem to prefer thinking of risk in verbal terms (compared to numeric terms). Researchers should consider including both verbal and numeric measures of probability, and explore alternative measurement strategies, including anchoring vignettes, which have been valuable in standardizing verbal responses in other disciplines.
... Such framing effects have been found across a range of political attitudes, including support for government spending and campaign finance (for a review, see Chong & Druckman, 2007). In the realm of criminal justice, through framing studies, scholars have reported similar results regarding views about the death penalty (Peffley & Hurwitz, 2007), the Supreme Court (Nicholson & Howard, 2003), and how the racialized framing of crime affects corresponding public attitudes (e.g., Applegate & Sanborn, 2011;Park, Holody, & Zhang, 2012;Ramirez, 2013). ...
In this article, we examine criminal offending by true perpetrators after innocent people are arrested and convicted for their crimes. After investigating a set of cases in which DNA was used to exonerate the innocent and to identify the guilty party, we identified 109 true perpetrators, 102 of whom committed additional crimes. We found a total of 337 additional offenses committed by the true perpetrators, including 43 homicide‐related and 94 sex offenses. By extrapolating from our findings, we estimate that the wrong‐person wrongful convictions that occur annually may lead to more than 41,000 additional crimes. Our findings indicate that one consequence of wrongful convictions, allowing the true perpetrators of crimes to remain at liberty and commit new crimes that imperil prospective victims, represents an important threat to public safety and thereby dramatically compounds the harms caused to innocents. We stress the importance of framing wrongful conviction issues to capture these important crime control concerns and, thus, to help galvanize public opinion and promote policy reforms that will mutually benefit adherents of both crime control and due process perspectives.
... Framing theory has been used to understand the effects of media and elite rhetoric on a broad range of social and political attitudes (Busby et al. 2018;Gamson and Modigiliani 1989;Nelson et al. 1997). In criminology, framing theory has been utilized to examine news stories' emphasis on racial or ethnic elements of crimes (Park et al. 2012), public narratives about homicide (Peelo 2006), evaluations of courts (Applegate and Sanborn 2011), and public punitiveness (Ramirez 2013;Simmons 2017). ...
Objectives
Discourse about criminal justice in the USA increasingly revolves around wrongful convictions. Research has documented the emergence of the “innocence frame,” but relatively little is known about its effects on public opinion. We utilize framing theory to examine how various presentations of wrongful conviction information affect attitudes toward the justice system and highlight the consequences of the innocence movement for public opinion.
Methods
We implement two survey experiments to test the effects of innocence information for criminal justice attitudes. In the first experiment, we test the impact of wrongful conviction numbers relative to a control group for death penalty support. In the second experiment, we analyze the effects—both separately and jointly—of exoneration numbers and a wrongful conviction narrative relative to a control group for attitudes toward the death penalty and police reform, trust in the justice system, and personal concern.
Results
We demonstrate that the presentation of factual numbers of exonerations reduces support for capital punishment and erodes trust in the justice system, but fails to garner support for police reforms or increase personal concern about wrongful convictions. However, a narrative about an individual wrongful conviction predictably has more pronounced effects on death penalty attitudes and increases personal concern and support for police reform, but has little effect on trust in the justice system more broadly.
Conclusions
Wrongful convictions are consequential for public opinion, but the effects are contingent on how the information is framed and the attitudinal outcome of interest. Our findings have implications for criminal justice attitudes and policy, the innocence movement, and framing theory.
... Finally, I included a methodological control for survey design effects. Question wording, the format of response options, and other design choices cause differences in respondents' answers; these design effects have been demonstrated by both survey methodologists (Rugg, 1941;Schaeffer & Presser, 2003;Schuman & Presser, 1981;Tourangeau, Couper, & Conrad, 2004) and penologists specifically studying public opinion about criminal justice (Applegate & Sanborn, 2011;Harris, 1986;Jones, 1994;Pickett & Baker, 2014;Rasinski, 1989). In this survey, I addressed primacy effects, the tendency of respondents to choose the first satisfactory answer they encounter while reading a list of options whether or not that is the best/most accurate answer in the entire list. ...
I examine public support for sentencing reform for nonviolent offenders situated within a justice reinvestment context. I analyze data from a survey administered to a nationally representative sample of White and Black Americans. I pay particular attention to differences in support between the two races, and I analyze the degree to which ideological beliefs explain interracial differences. I find that a larger number of both Black and White people support, rather than oppose, sentencing property and drug offenders to community-based sanctions instead of prison, but the likelihood that a person will express support or opposition is related to several ideological beliefs and demographic characteristics. I find that racism and the belief that the criminal justice system is fair mediate the relationship between race and support for sentencing property offenders to community-based sanctions, but race continues to exert an independent effect in regard to sentencing drug offenders.
... average length of sentence or number of inmates on death row) would have any effect. Finally, given the recent work of Applegate and Sanborn (2011) we must consider the possibility that we may be over-estimating the level of public punitiveness by using the GSS's COURTS question, as its wording is so that it promotes a greater number of respondents to express a desire for more punitive courts. ...
Changing Beliefs about Crime and Punishment in American Society
Patrick R. Cundiff, Duane F. Alwin
Abstract
Dramatic changes in the operation of the criminal justice system over the past quarter-century have been accompanied by significant shifts in beliefs about the punishment of criminals. Using data from the General Social Survey from 1972 to 2008, this study examines changes in beliefs about the courts’ handling of criminals. While there has been considerable change across time in all groups in society, the direction of that change has been quite variable. In a decomposition analysis, we investigate two major mechanisms of change in these beliefs—cohort replacement and intra-cohort change--while testing competing theoretical models for the social sources of public punitiveness. Analyzing change in different historical periods and geographic regions and within different segments of the population sheds new light on the processes of punitiveness and belief change in the U.S. since the 1970s.
Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/jlcj.v3n1a4
... It bears mention that sample size was not a problem. The sample was larger than that in many public opinion studies (see e.g., Applegate & Sanborn, 2011;Gabbidon & Boisvert, 2012) and, more relevant, had power sufficient to detect even minor substantive differences in the various outcomes. Here, for example, power is over 95 percent across the different outcomes for detecting differences of more than 0.20 (on the 4-point scale). ...
Evidence of a corrections agency scandal involving corruption can be expected to diminish public perceptions of agency effectiveness, especially in an era in which government accountability has featured prominently in national and state criminal justice policy discourse. However, relatively little scholarly attention has studied this idea. Using 2006 public opinion survey data collected prior to and after the highly publicized resignation of a corrections department director who was investigated for and subsequently convicted of graft and mismanagement, this study examines whether a prominent corrections agency scandal exerted an appreciable effect on how the public viewed the agency's performance. Study findings suggest that the scandal had no effect on the public's perception of the department's performance. Implications of the study for research and policy are discussed.
... This approach to testing the pragmatism thesis is not ideal for two reasons. First, survey marginals can be heavily influenced by acquiescent responding, question wording, and question order (Applegate and Sanborn, 2011;Krosnick, 1999;Stimson, 1999). Second, finding that a majority, or slight majority, of the public generally has at least somewhat favorable attitudes toward punitive and rehabilitative policies does not provide clear evidence of pragmatism. ...
Scholars widely agree that the public is pragmatic about criminal justice. The empirical basis for this conclusion is the failure in several previous studies to find a sizable negative relationship between dispositional and situational crime attributions, or between support for punitive and rehabilitative crime policies. We suggest, however, that public pragmatism may be an artifact of the use of unidirectional question batteries in prior research to measure attribution styles and policy support. When such questions are used, acquiescent responding can introduce systematic error that is positively correlated across items and scales. Drawing on data from an experiment with a national sample (N = 826) of Internet panelists, we examine how this methodological approach impacts the bivariate correlations and multivariate relationships between attribution styles and between support for punitive and rehabilitative crime policies. The findings reveal that using unidirectional sets of questions to measure these concepts likely results in 1) inflated alpha reliability coefficients, 2) an underestimation of the magnitude of the negative relationships between attribution styles and between punitiveness and support for rehabilitation, and 3) an underestimation of the extent to which punitiveness and support for rehabilitation are driven by the same factors, working in opposite directions.
The use of body-worn cameras (BWCs) by police organizations has increased rapidly in recent years. As a result, the use of BWC footage by mass media has also increased. While such video images can help viewers better understand complex police interventions, there are few studies of the extent to which BWC footage influences audience opinions and interpretations of police work. This article investigates the degree to which news reports of a police use-of-force event are influenced by two potential sources of cognitive bias: camera perspective and the way information about the event is framed. In a study using a three (cellphone, closed-circuit camera, and BWC perspective) by two (neutral and negative frame) experimental design, a total of 634 participants viewed and evaluated a news report of a police use-of-force event. Participant perceptions showed the influence of a BWC perspective bias, but no framing effect was found. Participants who watched the BWC footage were more likely to see the intervention as questionable or blameworthy and to believe that officers had no reasonable grounds for intervening. Results also suggest that the BWC perspective bias can be exacerbated or mitigated by the way information is presented in a news report.
Objectives
This study considers the social determinants of twenty-first century punitive American views. Methods
Using General Social Survey data for 2000 and 2014, this research seeks to replicate Unnever and Cullen’s analysis of the determinants of punitive American views in 2000, extend their analysis to consider animus toward the poor as a predictor of punitive views, and consider the social foundations of punitiveness in 2014. ResultsOur analysis replicates Unnever and Cullen’s (Criminology 48: 99–129, 2010) findings for 2000 and identifies previously obscured indirect effects of anti-Black racial stereotypes on punitiveness. In our extension analyses, animus toward the poor was a significant predictor of punitiveness in 2000. For 2014, we find that anti-Black racial resentment, animus toward the poor, and social anxiety significantly predicted both support for the death penalty and the belief that courts are not harsh enough. Conclusions
The social sources of American punitive views have not shifted fundamentally in the last 15 years. Both racial resentment and animus toward the poor have been and remain powerful predictors of punitive American views in the twenty-first century, controlling for other factors.
Poverty means more than having a low income and includes exclusion from a minimally accepted way of life. It is now common practice in Europe to measure progress against poverty in terms of low income, material deprivation rates and some combination of both. This makes material deprivation indicators, and their selection, highly significant in its own right. The ‘consensual poverty’ approach is to identify deprivation items which a majority of the population agree constitute life’s basic necessities, accepting that these items will need revised over time to reflect social change. Traditionally, this has been carried out in the UK through specialised poverty surveys using a Sort Card (SC) technique. Based on analysis of a 2012 omnibus survey, and discussions with three interviewers, this article examines how perception of necessities is affected by mode of administration—SC and Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI). More CAPI respondents scored deprivation items necessary. Greatest disparities are in material items where 25 out of 32 items were significantly higher via CAPI. Closer agreement is found in social participation with 3 out of 14 activities significantly different. Consensus is higher on children’s material deprivation. We consider influencing variables which could account for the disparities and believe that the SC method produces a more considered response. However, in light of technological advances, we question how long the SC method will remain socially acceptable. This paper concludes that the CAPI method can be easily modified without compromising the benefits of the SC method in capturing thoughtful responses.
This article examines the effect of economic individualism – a belief that individuals can and should be responsible for their own economic welfare – on punitive attitudes in the English-speaking western world. Using existing survey data from the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK and New Zealand, the relationship between both normative and descriptive economic individualism and support for stiffer sentences and the death penalty is empirically assessed. Relatively consistently, a positive and significant relationship exists between both measures of economic individualism and both measures of punitiveness. This article suggests possible causal and non-causal reasons for this finding, as well as implications for future research.
This report examines attitudes to, and perceptions of, sentencing and the CJS in England and Wales, drawing mainly on the 2010/11 Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW). The analysis focuses on perceptions of trust and confidence in justice, as well as presenting findings on knowledge about sentencing and crime trends and attitudes toward sentencing. In order to address issues of public cooperation and institutional legitimacy, the report also draws upon UK data from Round 5 of the European Social Survey (ESS).
An often-repeated claim by conservative commentators attributes continuing liberal beliefs to the fact that progressives "have not been mugged." This claim thus portrays leftist views on public policy, including crime, as utopian, if not disingenuous - as held by people who have not had to face harsh realities. Using national-level data from the General Social Survey that span two decades, we test this "mugging thesis." Controlling for an array of predictors of public opinion, we find no discernible relationship between being a crime victim and having a conservative worldview, support for conservative social policies, or punitiveness toward crime as measured by support for the death penalty and for harsher courts. These results question the validity of the "mugging thesis" and, more generally, of attempts to use slogans to undermine progressive political agendas.
We review the meaning of the concept of framing, approaches to studying framing, and the effects of framing on public opinion. After defining framing and framing effects, we articulate a method for identifying frames in communication and a psychological model for understanding how such frames affect public opinion. We also discuss the relationship between framing and priming, outline future research directions, and describe the normative implications of framing.
In the 1990s, states enacted a plethora of new "get tough" laws targeting sex crime. These included extending the death penalty--a punishment typically reserved for murderers--to convicted sex offenders. Little attention, however, has been given to explaining why these tougher responses emerged and, in particular, whether the public supported extending the use of the death penalty to sex offenders. The goal of this paper was to examine whether public perceptions about executing sex offenders accorded with the punitive shift in policy and, more broadly, to contribute to scholarship on the death penalty. To this end, this paper examined data from a 1991 national public opinion poll, conducted just prior to the punitive shift in sex crime policies. The study found that views about executing sex offenders depended heavily on whether the victim was a child, that support for executing sex offenders was substantially lower than for executing murderers, and that few social and demographic divides differentially predicted support for executing sex offenders versus murderers. Implications of the study are discussed.
Research on the public''s level of death penalty support (DPS) has neglected gender-specific models. While most previous work has shown that women have lower DPS than men, it is not clear whether traditional models of DPS will work for a sample restricted to women. The greater intolerance of the death penalty among women may overshadow or reduce the impact of traditional predictors of DPS among women. The present paper performs the first systematic gender-specific analysis of DPS. It uses national data from the 1990 General Social Survey. Measures of three variable sets were employed: symbolic orientations (e.g., political conservatism, authoritarianism); crime salience (e.g., victimization, fear); and demographic controls. The results of a stepwise logistic regression analysis showed that political conservatism has a direct effect on the DPS of both men and women. For women only, authoritarianism also had a direct effect on DPS. Further analysis showed that for women, six variables exert an indirect effect on DPS through political conservatism and five through authoritarianism. Only three indirect effects were found for men. However, none of the 16 variables analyzed had a significant gendered effect. Indicators of traditional models of DPS were found to work as well for women as they did for men.
Public attitudes about juvenile crime play a significant role in fashioning juvenile justice policy; variations in the wording of public opinion surveys can produce very different responses and can result in inaccurate and unreliable assessments of public sentiment. Surveys that ask about policy alternatives in vague terms are especially problematic. The authors conducted an experiment in which a large sample of respondents were presented with a crime scenario in which the offender's age and prior record, the type of crime, and the inclusiveness of the policy in question were varied. Respondents were asked about the extent to which they support trying juveniles in adult court. Responses varied significantly as a function of the offender's age, criminal record, and offense but not as a function of inclusiveness. For legislators using public opinion polls to guide their decisions, blanket statements describing the results of vaguely worded surveys items can be misleading and can lead to poorly informed policy making. Yes Yes
Una revisión meta-analítica del efecto del marco: marco de riesgo, atributo y objetivo. En este trabajo se presentan los resultados de un estudio meta-analítico sobre el efecto del marco. Una búsqueda exhaustiva de la literatura nos permitió identificar 51 estudios primarios independientes, publicados entre 1997 y 2003, que cumplían con los criterios de selección establecidos, y que dieron lugar a 151 estimaciones del tamaño del efecto con cerca de 13.500 sujetos. El efecto, mediante el índice d, fue de 0.437 en el caso del marco de riesgo, 0.260 en el marco de atributo y 0.444 en el marco de objetivo. Se analizó la influencia de diversas variables moderadoras, como el género de los participantes, el diseño, el modo de respuesta, etc. Finalmente, se discuten las posibles explicaciones de los resultados y sus implicaciones.
Consumers rated several qualitative attributes of ground beef that framed the beef as either ???75% lean??? or ???25% fat.??? The consumers' evaluations were more favorable toward the beef labeled ???75% lean??? than that labeled ???25% fat.??? More importantly, the magnitude of this information framing effect lessened when consumers actually tasted the meat. We discuss these results in terms of an averaging model, which suggests that a diagnostic product experience dilutes the impact of information framing.
Accentuate the positive or accentuate the negative? The literature has been mixed as to how the alternative framing of information in positive or negative terms affects judgments and decisions. We argue that this is because different studies have employed different operational definitions of framing and thus have tapped different underlying processes. We develop a typology to distinguish between three different kinds of valence framing effects. First we discuss the standard risky choice framing effect introduced by Tversky and Kahneman (1981) to illustrate how valence affects willingness to take a risk. Then we discuss attribute framing, which affects the evaluation of object or event characteristics, and goal framing, which affects the persuasiveness of a communication. We describe the distinctions, provide a number of examples of each type, and discuss likely theoretical mechanisms underlying each type of framing effect. Our typology helps explain and resolve apparent confusions in the literature, ties together studies with common underlying mechanisms, and serves as a guide to future research and theory development. We conclude that a broader perspective, focused on the cognitive and motivational consequences of valence-based encoding, opens the door to a deeper understanding of the causes and consequences of framing effects.
"Get tough" control policies in the United States are often portrayed as the reflection of the public's will: Americans are punitive and want offenders locked up. Research from the past decade both reinforces and challenges this assessment. The public clearly accepts, if not prefers, a range of punitive policies (e. g., capital punishment, three-strikes-and-you're-out laws, imprisonment). But support for get-tough policies is "mushy." Thus citizens may be willing to substitute a sentence of life imprisonment without parole for the death penalty. Especially when nonviolent offenders are involved, there is substantial support for intermediate sanctions and for restorative justice. Despite three decades of criticism, rehabilitation-particularly for the young-remains an integral part of Americans' correctional philosophy. There is also widespread support for early intervention programs. In the end, the public shows a tendency to be punitive and progressive, wishing the correctional system to achieve the diverse missions of doing justice, protecting public safety, and reforming the wayward.
What Works in Corrections, first published in 2006, examines the impact of correctional interventions, management policies, treatment and rehabilitation programs on the recidivism of offenders and delinquents. The book reviews different strategies for reducing recidivism and describes how the evidence for effectiveness is assessed. Thousands of studies were examined in order to identify those of sufficient scientific rigor to enable conclusions to be drawn about the impact of various interventions, policies and programs on recidivism. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses were performed to further examine these results. This book assesses the relative effectiveness of rehabilitation programs (e.g., education, life skills, employment, cognitive behavioral), treatment for different types of offenders (e.g. sex offenders, batterers, juveniles), management and treatment of drug-involved offenders (e.g., drug courts, therapeutic communities, outpatient drug treatment) and punishment, control and surveillance interventions (boot camps, intensive supervision, electronic monitoring). Through her extensive research, MacKenzie illustrates which of these programs are most effective and why. © Doris Layton MacKenzie 2006 and Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Research on public knowledge has found that the public knows little about crime or the criminal justice system including crime-related statistics such as crime rates, recidivism rates, and average sentences. Members of the public have little familiarity with specific laws or with their legal rights. Although some research shows that most people favor the imposition of harsher sentences on convicted offenders, more refined research reveals that the public is not more punitive than the judiciary. Research on crime seriousness reveals substantial consensus between different groups and over time. Policymakers and criminal justice professionals believe attitudes to be harsher than they are. A priority for the criminal justice system is to dispel misperceptions of crime held by the public and misperceptions of public attitudes held by professionals and policymakers.
The sentencing guidelines written by the U.S. Sentencing Commission for the federal crime courts were designed to lead to uniform the just punishments for convicted criminals. How well did the Commission's judgments about what were just punishments compare to the view of the American public? Using data from a 1994 national household survey, the authors compare the punishments described by the Commission to those desired by the public. Contrary to the frequency claims of excessive leniency on the part of judges that are often asserted by journalists and shapers of opinions, Rossi and Berk find strong correspondence between the median sentences deemed appropriate by the public and the sentences prescribed by the guidelines. Although the authors conclude that the Commission was able to match prescribed punishments closely to the American consensus for most crimes, in one category -- drug trafficking offenses -- the guidelines were much harsher in dealing with offenders. The national survey used a factorial survey as its design strategy, allowing for analysis of a large variety of federal crimes and variations in the social characteristics of convicted felons. A wealth of detail, along with ample graphic and tabular illustrations, extends the book's application to issues of consensus and variations in punitiveness by region and socioeconomic characteristics of respondents.
A sizeable body of literature has found a surprising amount of agreement among racial and other demographic subgroups on punitive attitudes toward criminals. This consensus has been widely interpreted as evidence for functionalist views of crime and society. Challenging this interpretation, this paper argues that the similar attitudes between the races on punitiveness may in fact mask underlying hostilities and conflicting interests. Analyzing data from the 1987 National Opinion Research Center (NORC) General Social Survey, we find that the punitive attitudes of whites toward criminals are based partly on racial prejudice, while those of blacks are associated with their fear of crime. These results suggest that the consensus found in many previous studies between whites and blacks on punitiveness toward criminals may be apparent rather than real, and that their attitudes toward punitiveness reflect their disparate positions in the social and economic orders.
This paper examines the relation between the salience of crime and support for harsher legal sanctions (capital punishment, harsher courts) in American public opinion. Many of the “simple theories” of effect are not supported. People who are more afraid or who have been victimized do not necessarily favor harsher sanctions. At the ecological level, in environments which are characterized by higher rates of crime and greater fear of crime, respondents do not express a greater demand for harsher sanctions. However, public opinion and the “ideology” of crime and punishment are much more consistent in high risk areas.
Analyses of question wording experiments on the General Social Survey spending items showed consistent wording effects for
several issues across three years. An examination of types of wording change indicate that even minor changes can affect responses.
However, an examination of interactions with respondent individual differences showed no consistent pattern.
Logistic regression models were estimated using the 1994 General Social Survey to examine effects of race, gender, and geographical region on support for various criminal justice policies. Dependent variables included support for capital punishment, perceived harshness of courts, and support for police use of force under five conditions of escalating severity. African Americans were less likely to support capital punishment and police use of force than their counterparts. These results were enhanced when re-estimated using only the southern sample. Thus, regional prejudices affect minorities' perceptions of bias in criminal justice policy and practices. However, although African Americans were less likely to endorse police use of force in general, we found situationally specific instances in which African Americans did endorse police use of force.
This study uses data from the 1996 General Social Survey to examine how the race, class, and ethclass perspectives account for middle-class African Americans' support toward four policyrelated dimensions of crime control. Findings vary across the dimensions and provide support for the race and ethclass perspectives. In particular, racial effects are pronounced across dimensions that involve daily contact with law enforcement agents and are muted by incumbency in a privileged class position across dimensions that do not involve daily contact with them. Overall, findings suggest the African American middle class is, in principle, at least as invested in crime control as White peers, but mistrust of its implementation explains lower levels of support than that of the White middle class. Implications concerning how the crime control issue constitutes a source of division across racial lines among the middle class are discussed and suggestions for future research are offered.
What are the public safety consequences of the fourfold increase in the number of individuals entering and leaving the nation’s prisons each year? Many have speculated about the nexus between prisoner reentry and public safety. Law enforcement officials have attributed increases in violence in their communities to the influx of returning prisoners. Politicians have recommended policies that keep former prisoners out of high crime neighborhoods in the belief that crime would be reduced. The chapters in this book address these issues and suggest policies that will keep released prisoners from committing new crimes
The 1990s saw concerted legislative efforts to increase the mechanisms through which juveniles could be transferred to the adult court. Beginning research exists on how the public feels about transferring youths out of the juvenile justice system, but it is somewhat dated and does little to illuminate the reasons people support transfer. Using a statewide sample and factorial survey design, this study assesses how public views are related to multiple factors, including offense and offender characteristics, views on the appropriate aims of juvenile sentencing, perceptions of juvenile maturity, and expectations about the results of transferring juvenile cases to the adult criminal justice system. Our findings suggest that people want transfer used sparingly and selectively and that support is greatest when they believe that the adult system can provide effective rehabilitation as well as punishment. Implications are discussed.
In the recent movement to pass “three-strikes-and-you're-out” laws, policymakers often cite opinion polls that ostensibly show widespread public support for these initiatives. Our community survey, however, reveals that support for three-strikes laws is high when citizens are asked broad single-item questions, but diminishes greatly when citizens are presented with specific situations covered under the law. Further, the public appears willing to make exceptions to three-strikes laws. Taken together, these findings suggest that citizens would endorse three-strikes policies that focus on only the most serious offenders and that allow for flexible application.
L'opinion publique en ce qui concerne le crime et les sanctions judiciaires semble sous l'emprise d'un climat pasionnel ou se manifestent des attitudes excessives. L'A. montre, au contraire, vis-a-vis de certains delits que l'opinion publique apparait nuancee et reflechie dans ses appreciations. Elle semble, ainsi, tres au courant des donnees concernant certains crimes. L'A. presente un certain nombre de donnees collectees aux Etats-Unis entre 1965 et 1993 concernant la perception sociale du crime. Il montre que l'opinion publique apprehende avec une relative justesse les risques d'etre victime d'une agression
Despite good theoretical reasons to expect strong differences between Southern whites and non‐Southern whites in death penalty support, prior research with 1990 General Social Survey (GSS) data found only a small difference that lacked statistical significance. This paper investigates the possibilities that this null result was a statistical anomaly due to sampling vagaries or that a regional difference has emerged since 1990. Examining GSS data from 1974 through 2006, we initially found that a South/non‐South regional difference among whites did not exist before 1993 but has existed since then. However, further analysis revealed that a Northeast/non‐Northeast difference among whites has also existed during this same period. These findings suggest that future research on death penalty opinion should use both such differences as regional controls rather than just the customary South/non‐South division.
166 adults in Canada answered a set of global questions measuring attitudes toward the criminal justice system and made decisions about a set of hypothetical offenders applying for parole. The cases varied in type of offense, criminal history, and participation in rehabilitative programs while in prison. Many Ss supported parole in some circumstances (e.g., at least a majority of Ss chose some form of early release for each of the nonviolent offenders portrayed). Each manipulated variable had significant effects on Ss' willingness to recommend early release, showing that Ss' choices were not determined entirely by considerations of retribution or punishment. Global questions seemed to show much more punitive attitudes than did decisions in specific cases. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This paper explores the relationship between liberalism, victimization experience (both direct and vicarious), fear of victimization, and attitudes towards purposes of incarceration. The study makes use of a national public opinion poll conducted for ABC News in 1982. The major findings are that both fear and liberalism contribute to punitiveness but, more importantly, individual demographic characteristics are ambiguously related to punitiveness. It appears that demographic characteristics are related to punitiveness through a complex of other attitudinal associations—in this instance, fear and liberalism. Neither direct nor vicarious victimization had a direct effect on punishment attitudes. To the extent that victimization experience affects punitiveness, the effects are indirect through fear.
Although research typically has failed to establish a relationship between religious affiliation and correctional attitudes, recent assessments have revealed that fundamentalist Christians tend to be more punitive than are nonfundamentalists. These studies have advanced our understanding considerably, but their conceptualization of religion and correctional attitudes has been limited. Using a statewide survey, the present study demonstrates that compassionate as well as fundamentalist aspects of religious beliefs are related to public correctional preferences. Further, our results reveal that religion influences support for rehabilitation as well as punitiveness. These findings suggest the need for scholars to think more broadly about the role of religion in criminology.
The sustained movement to “get tough” on crime, especially through mass imprisonment, has prompted several prominent efforts to explain the public's harshness toward crime. From the extant literature, we demarcate the following three competing theories of public punitiveness: the escalating crime-distrust model, the moral decline model, and the racial animus model. Controlling for other known predictors of crime-related opinions, we test the explanatory power of these perspectives to account for support for the death penalty and for a punitive crime-control approach. Our analysis of a national sample of respondents surveyed in the 2000 National Election Study reveals partial support for each model. Racial animus, however, seems to exert the most consistent effect on public sentiments. This finding suggests that racial resentments are inextricably entwined in public punitiveness and thus should be incorporated into any complete theory of this phenomenon.
This paper aims to review randomized experiments in criminology with offending outcomes and reasonably large numbers that were published between 1982 and 2004. A total of 83 experiments are summarized, compared with only 35 published between 1957 and 1981: 12 on policing, 13 on prevention, 14 on corrections, 22 on courts, and 22 on community interventions. Randomized experiments are still relatively uncommon, but there have been more large-scale multi-site experiments and replication programs. There have also been several experiments in which 100 or more places were randomly assigned. Relatively few experiments (only 10 out of 83) were conducted outside the United States. Meta-analyses suggest that prevention methods, correctional therapy, batterer programs, drug courts, juvenile restitution and deterrent policing were effective in reducing offending, while Scared Straight and boot camp programs caused a significant increase in offending.
While juvenile justice policy in the United States has become more punitive in recent years, it remains unclear whether the public actually favors this response in lieu of more rehabilitation-oriented services. Public opinion polling generally shows that the public favors less punitive responses than policymakers often suppose, but significant questions remain about the accuracy of these perceptions generally, and in how they have been assessed in particular. Data from four states (Illinois, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, and Washington) aimed at assessing public preferences for rehabilitation and incarceration as a response to serious juvenile crime indicated that, for the most part, the public was willing to pay more in taxes for rehabilitation than incarceration.
The past 30 years have seen vast changes in our attitudes toward crime. More and more of us live in gated communities; prison populations have skyrocketed; and issues such as racial profiling, community policing, and "zero-tolerance" policies dominate the headlines. How is it that our response to crime and our sense of criminal justice has come to be so dramatically reconfigured? David Garland charts the changes in crime and criminal justice in America and Britain over the past twenty-five years, showing how they have been shaped by two underlying social forces: the distinctive social organization of late modernity and the neoconservative politics that came to dominate the United States and the United Kingdom in the 1980s. Garland explains how the new policies of crime and punishment, welfare and securityâand the changing class, race, and gender relations that underpin themâare linked to the fundamental problems of governing contemporary societies, as states, corporations, and private citizens grapple with a volatile economy and a culture that combines expanded personal freedom with relaxed social controls. It is the risky, unfixed character of modern life that underlies our accelerating concern with control and crime control in particular. It is not just crime that has changed; society has changed as well, and this transformation has reshaped criminological thought, public policy, and the cultural meaning of crime and criminals. David Garland's The Culture of Control offers a brilliant guide to this process and its still-reverberating consequences.
Prospect theory postulates that decisions are influenced not only by probability and value of possible outcomes, but also by the manner in which these probabilities are presented. Variations in the presentation of the same information, in several areas of care, are considered to determine their influence upon health decisions of both doctors and patients. Three health-related predicaments involving varying levels of risk are presented either in a positive or a negative frame and were given to 74 medical students who stated whether they would advise a patient or be prepared themselves to undergo one of three medical procedures. The influence of framing upon these decisions was evident both when subjects responded as patients and as doctors, but its influence was bounded by the level of risk and the type of health decision. These findings raise questions concerning how probabilistic information should be presented to both patients and doctors to counteract the effect of framing upon their decisions.
Differences between men and women in their proximity to crime, moral development, and attitudes toward an array of social issues suggest that a gender gap in crime views may exist. Investigations of this possibility, however, are in short supply. Using a statewide data set and a variety of global and specific questions about crime policy, punishment, and rehabilitation, this study found that men and women tend to hold moderately divergent views. Women tend to express greater support for offender treatment and less support for punishment than men. Implications of these results for the future of correctional and crime policy are discussed.