This paper assesses whether support for harsh punitive policies toward crime is related to the racial typification of crime for a national random sample of households (N=885), surveyed in 2002. Results from OLS regression show that the racial typification of crime is a significant predictor of punitiveness, independent of the influence of racial prejudice, conservatism, crime salience, southern residence and other factors. This relationship is shown to be concentrated among whites who are either less prejudiced, not southern, conservative and for whom crime salience is low. The results broaden our understanding of the links between racial threat and social control, beyond those typically associated with racial composition of place. They also resonate important themes in what some have termed modern racism and what others have described as the politics of exclusion.
Data from a 1997 survey of 2, 250 Florida residents are used to assess whether and how the reality of crime influences the relationship between watching TV news and fear of crime. Local crime rates, victim experience, and perceived realism of crime news operationalize the reality of crime and are included in ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates of the TV news and fear of crime relationship. These measures of reality are also used as contexts for disaggregating the analysis. Local and national news are related to fear of crime independent of the effects of the reality of crime and other controls. Local news effects are stronger, especially for people who live in high crime places or have recent victim experience. This contextual pattern of findings is consistent with a conclusion that TV news is most influential when it resonates the experience or crime reality of respondents.
Following a brief overview of debate in the US over pornography, the nature of obscenity, & censorship, data are presented from a telephone survey of 306 adult residents of Leon County, FL, in 1994, at which time a criminal trial involving the distribution of "obscene" movies was making news. Focus was on the effects of religiosity on public opinion regarding the availability of hetero- & homosexual pornographic material. Results indicate that more religious (particularly conservative religious) respondents (Rs) were less accepting of the availability of pornographic videos, though religious affiliation itself was not significant; however, this relationship received little support when R gender, age, race, marital/parental status, income, & political ideology were controlled. In general, Rs were less accepting of homo- than heterosexual pornography. Implications for replicating the study in other parts of the country so as to establish community standards are discussed. 2 Tables, 9 References. K. Hyatt Stewart
A relationship between fear of crime and the racial composition of place has been widely assumed but seldom tested. Interviews conducted with a random sample of adults residing in a major state capital in the early months of 1994‐at the height of a media‐driven panic about violent crime‐are used to test the proposition that as the percentage of blacks in one's neighborhood increases, so too will the fear of crime. We use objective and perceptual measures of racial composition, and we examine the effects of racial composition and minority status on fear of crime for black and white respondents. We distinguish between perceived safety or risk of victimization and fear, with the former used as an intervening variable in path models of fear of crime. Results show that actual racial composition has no consequence for the fear of crime when other relevant factors are controlled. Perceived racial composition is significant for fear among whites, but not among African‐Americans. In particular, the perception that one is in the racial minority in one's neighborhood elevates fear among whites but not among blacks. All effects of perceived racial composition on fear are indirect and mediated by the perception of risk of crime.
This article examines whether and in what ways punitive attitudes toward criminals can be understood as having roots in two hypothesized sources of anxiety in western society. The first is the danger of crime and its salience and the second is economic insecurity. Both have been seen as sources of growing perceptions that the State is failing in its responsibility to provide for citizen's physical safety and economic security. Punitiveness toward criminals is hypothesized by some to be a way to act decisively in a time of relative uncertainty. It also serves to distinguish between the `undeserving poor' and those who are economically insecure. Interviews with 2250 randomly selected Florida residents provide the data for this study. Our results indicate that crime salience, especially fear and concern about crime consistently predict punitiveness. When economic insecurity is measured in terms of expected circumstances in the near future, it is significantly linked to punitive attitudes among white males, particularly those who are less well educated and earn less income. The results are consistent with some aspects of an `angry white male' phenomenon, particularly to the extent that those negative sentiments have a racial focus.
Recent theoretical advancements of the racial threat model of punitiveness suggest that because youthful offending has driven crime trends in recent decades, and because racially exclusive conceptions of childhood have historically structured public opinion on juvenile justice, Black criminal stereotypes may be especially consequential for attitudes toward juvenile punishments. Building on this work, the current study uses national survey data to examine whether the strength of the relationship between Black criminal stereotypes and support for punitive policies varies according to whether punishments are targeted toward juvenile delinquents or criminals in general. We find that Black criminal stereotypes are positively associated with punitive attitudes and that the magnitude of this effect is statistically identical in the cases of youth-specific and nonyouth-specific sanctions. Thus, the results suggest that racialized support for punitive crime policies is not influenced by the juvenility of the offender.
Research on social inequality in punishment has focused for a long time on the complex relationship among race, ethnicity, and criminal sentencing, with a particular interest in the theoretical importance that group threat plays in the exercise of social control in society. Prior research typically relies on aggregate measures of group threat and focuses on racial rather than on ethnic group composition. The current study uses data from a nationally representative sample of U.S. residents to investigate the influence of more proximate and diverse measures of ethnic group threat, examining public support for the judicial use of ethnic considerations in sentencing. Findings indicate that both aggregate and perceptual measures of threat influence popular support for ethnic disparity in punishment and that individual perceptions of criminal and economic threat are particularly important. Moreover, we find that perceived threat is conditioned by aggregate group threat contexts. Findings are discussed in relation to the growing Hispanic population in the rapidly changing demographic structure of U.S. society.
Over 100 years ago, juvenile courts emerged out of the belief that juveniles are different from adults—less culpable and more rehabilitatable—and can be "saved" from a life of crime and disadvantage. Today, the juvenile justice system is under attack through increasing calls to eliminate it and enactment of statutes designed to place younger offenders in the adult justice system. However, little evidence exists that policy makers have taken the full range of public views into account. At the same time, scholarly accounts of calls to eliminate the juvenile justice system have neglected the role of public opinion. The current study addresses this situation by examining public views about 1) abolishing juvenile justice and 2) the proper upper age of original juvenile court jurisdiction. Particular attention is given to the notion that child‐saving and "get tough" orientations influence public views about juvenile justice. The analyses suggest support for the lingering appeal of juvenile justice among the public and the idea that youth can be "saved," as well as arguments about the politicization and criminalization of juvenile justice. They also highlight that the public, like states, holds variable views about the appropriate age of juvenile court jurisdiction. We discuss the implications of the study and avenues for future research.Why is it not just and proper to treat these juvenile offenders, as we deal with the neglected children, as a wise and merciful father handles his own child whose errors are not discovered by the authorities? Why is it not the duty of the state, instead of asking merely whether a boy or a girl has committed a specific offense, to find out what he is, physically, mentally, morally, and then if it learns that he is treading the path that leads to criminality, to take him in charge, not so much to punish as to reform, not to degrade but to uplift, not to crush but to develop, to make him not a criminal but a worthy citizen.
