NCJ Number
178191
Journal
Canadian Journal of Criminology Volume: 41 Issue: 3 Dated: July 1999 Pages: 365-384
Date Published
July 1999
Length
20 pages
Annotation
Data from the 1993 Canadian General Social Survey, Personal Risk, were used to examine factors that influence public attitudes toward courts in Canada.
Abstract
The research focused on the court's ability to help victims and to protect the rights of the accused. The sample of 10,385 persons ages 15 years and older was selected by random-digit dialing. The response rate was 81.6 percent. Results indicated that socioeconomic status is an important predictor of public attitudes. Educated, higher-income participants most often expressed dissatisfaction of the courts to help crime victims, reflecting the issue of protection of society. Conversely, dissatisfaction with the ability of the courts to protect the rights of accused individuals was most often expressed by participants belonging to lower socioeconomic groups. Measures of perceived and real vulnerability were significantly related to attitudes. Findings demonstrated the importance of analyzing attitudes in ways that are specific so that important differences in attitudes and predictors of attitudes are not obscured; the stratification of attitudes toward the courts by social class was uncovered only when two specific components of the criminal courts were analyzed separately. Tables, notes, and 29 references (Author abstract modified)