NCJ Number
99373
Journal
Criminal Justice and Behavior Volume: 12 Issue: 3 Dated: (September 1985) Pages: 305-331
Date Published
1985
Length
27 pages
Annotation
Building upon the work of Stinchcombe, Taylor et al., the present research attempts to assess the impact of victimization, salience, and attribution on four measures of criminal sanctioning: general punishment, rehabilitation, capital punishment, and the punishment of white-collar crime.
Abstract
Utilizing a sample drawn from Galesburg, Illinois, our analysis revealed that attitudes were not significantly influenced by being a victim or by crime salience. In contrast, our measure of attribution (what a person 'attributed' the cause of crime to) had consistent effects across the scales, with those having a positivist orientation being less punitive and more in favor of rehabilitation. When members of the criminal justice related occupations were included in the analysis, these results generally continued to persist. These findings thus suggest that attributional processes and, in particular, the way in which people explain crime may be important determinants of the attitudes that those both inside and outside the criminal justice system hold toward sanctioning policy. (Author abstract)