Types of Consensus in Public Evaluations of Crime - An Illustration of Strategies for Measuring 'Consensus'

• NCJ Number: 98438
• Journal: Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume: 75 Issue: 2 Dated: (Summer 1984) Pages: 459-473
• Author(s): T D Miethe
• Date Published: 1984
• Length: 15 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Various statistical techniques are used on a previously drawn sample of Baltimore, Md., residents to measure 'consensus' in public evaluations of crime. Four distinct types of consensus are identified.

Abstract

The first dimension of typology, relative consensus, is assessed by correlating the mean rating of different groups. Absolute consensus occurs when the ordering of items and the numerical scores assigned to each item are similar across and within social groups, and global consensus is when agreement in ratings occurs across the total list of items included in a scale. Local consensus refers to agreement on items that are either close together on the scale or of a particular type. Baltimore data on citizens' perceptions of deviant acts were reanalyzed to demonstrate the various measures of consensus at the individual and aggregate levels of analysis. For purposes of illustrating the different kinds of consensus, correlation, t-tests, and regression analyses were restricted to comparisons of the ratings of black and white respondents. Results indicate that the mean ratings of the races across all deviant acts exhibits a high degree of global relative consensus. Black and white ratings of violent, white-collar, and victimless crimes are also highly correlated, reflecting local relative consensus on these subsets of acts. Results of this study illustrate that different analytic strategies yield different conclusions about the extent of consensus in blacks' and whites' ratings of crime seriousness. Implications for further study are that by investigating different types of consensus and factors that contribute to these ratings, researchers will be in a better position to determine whether studies of crime seriousness are useful for judicial decisionmaking and for evaluation of different theories of law and criminal behavior. Tabular data and 48 reference notes are provided.