Velmer S Burton
Biographic Data
| ID | 189112 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Velmer S Burton |
| GIVEN NAMES | Velmer S |
| FAMILY NAME | Burton |
| SIGNATURE | BURTON V S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Arkansas at Little Rock |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 35 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 510 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 35 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1988 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
The hidden inhumanity of incarceration: Quantifying the suffering caused by banning sexual intimacy behind bars
Incarceration without Dehumanization: Public Support for Policies to Reduce Correctional Officer Misconduct
Misconduct committed against incarcerated people is severe and dehumanizing. As the media has begun to shine light on correctional officer misconduct, corrections departments have started implementing policies to curb misbehavior, such as equipping officers with body-worn cameras. Using survey data from a national sample (N = 1,000), the study explores attitudes toward policies intended to reduce officer misconduct in prisons. We also test experi…
Understanding Gun Ownership in the Twenty-First Century: Why Some Americans Own Guns, but Most Do Not
The gun ownership literature is vast, with dozens of studies seeking to explain who owns guns and why. We build on this literature in two key ways. First, we introduce a new variable into the fold: sensitivity to harm. We theorize that this concern actively inhibits gun ownership. Second, we direct theoretical and empirical attention to a predictor that has frequently been overlooked in the contemporary gun literature even though its timing makes…
Racial attitudes and belief in redeemability: Most Whites believe justice‐involved Black people can change
Public belief in redeemability reduces punitiveness and increases support for policy measures such as rehabilitation, expungement, and housing and employment opportunities. Although racial attitudes are known to influence a wide range of criminal justice policy opinions, their effects on beliefs about redeemability and condemnation have not been fully explored. Using data from a 2019 YouGov survey of a national sample of White U.S. adults (N = 76…
Attributions as Anchors: How the Public Explains School Shootings and Why It Matters
From Columbine to Sandy Hook to Marjory Stoneman Douglas, the American public has repeatedly witnessed the carnage and tragic consequences of mass school shootings. Using a national survey of American adults (N = 1,100) conducted between May 30 and June 6, 2018 in the aftermath of the Parkland tragedy, this project explores public opinion on why these events occur. Informed by sociological scholarship on social movements and framing, the analysis…
Punishing Rampage: Public Opinion on Sanctions for School Shooters
School shootings are one of the most salient social problems in America. Most prior research in this area has focused on identifying their causes and evaluating preventive school safety measures. An overlooked issue involves what to do with individuals who plan, attempt, or commit school shootings. Using data from an experiment embedded in a national survey of American adults (N = 1100), this study seeks to answer that question. We examine the pu…
Friend Not Foe? Reconsidering Race, the Police, and Community Relations
Given the complicated historical and contemporary relationship between law enforcement and African Americans, academic and popular commentary have focused intently on the existence of conflict between the police and the Black citizenry in the United States. The current project, however, seeks to broaden understanding in this area by exploring the extent to which African Americans know the police in positive, informal ways. Based on a 2017 nationa…
Understanding Who is Hired to Work in U.S. Prisons and Why it Matters: A Call for Research
Despite the longstanding issues within the correctional officer occupation (e.g., high turnover, absenteeism), decades of research have tended to focus solely on the negative consequences of correctional officer work, rather than on the unique personal characteristics of the officers themselves. This omission is surprising as it is highly probable that each person experiences correctional work differently, with variation potentially hinging on th…
Are guns the new dog whistle? Gun control, racial resentment, and vote choice
Two principal movers of American politics appear increasingly to be connected: racism and guns. The racial content underlying gun rights rhetoric, however, is rarely made explicit during political campaigns. As such, it is possible that espousing pro‐gun messages may be an effective way to surreptitiously court prejudiced voters without transgressing popular egalitarian norms. In other words, gun rights rhetoric may function as a racial dog whist…
Racial Sympathy and Support for Capital Punishment: A Case Study in Concept Transfer
Beliefs about race, especially racial resentment, are key predictors of public support for capital punishment and punitiveness generally. Drawing on a conceptual innovation by political scientist Jennifer Chudy, we explore the utility of transferring into criminology her construct of racial sympathy – or Whites' concern about Blacks' suffering. First, across three data sets, we replicate Chudy's finding that racial sympathy and resentment are emp…
An apple in one hand, a gun in the other: Public support for arming our nation's schools
Research summary In the wake of repeated school shootings, today's youth have acquired the label of the “mass shooting generation.” Another fitting label would be the “armed school generation.” Most states now permit school security officers to carry firearms, and at least 466 school districts in 19 states allow teachers or staff members to be armed. In this context, understanding public opinion about guns in schools is essential. Using a 2018 na…
Catholics and capital punishment: Do Pope Francis’s teachings matter in policy preferences
In the United States, Catholics make up more than 50 million members of the adult population, or about one in five Americans. It is unclear whether their religious affiliation shapes Catholics’ views on public policy issues, ranging from the legality of abortion to criminal justice practices. Capital punishment is especially salient, given that Pope Francis announced in 2018—as official Catholic Church teaching—that the death penalty is “inadmiss…
Who Wears the Maga Hat? Racial Beliefs and Faith in Trump
On the basis of a 2019 YouGov survey of white respondents ( n = 734), the impact of racial beliefs on support for Donald Trump was explored. The analysis revealed that in addition to racial resentment, white nationalism-a desire to keep the United States white demographically and culturally-was strongly related to faith in Trump. Analyses based on a 2019 Amazon Mechanical Turk survey yielded similar results and also showed that white nationalism …
Gun Owners and Gun Control: Shared Status, Divergent Opinions
After each mass public shooting, an inevitable debate surrounding the tools used to carry out the attack ensues. This debate is marked by two sides: those who endorse controlling access to firearms and those who oppose restrictions to the Second Amendment. Implicit in this dialogue is the assumption that gun owners are a homogenous group who stand in opposition to the gun control legislation. Using a national sample of American gun-owning adults,…
Belief in Redeemability and Punitive Public Opinion: “Once a Criminal, Always a Criminal” Revisited
In 2009, Maruna and King presented results from a British survey showing that the public’s belief in the redeemability of people who committed offenses curbed their level of punitiveness. Based on a 2017 national survey in the United States ( n = 1,000), the current study confirms that redeemability is negatively related to punitive attitudes. In addition, the analyses reveal that this belief predicts support for rehabilitation and specific inclu…
Beyond the eternal criminal record: Public support for expungement
Research Summary In The Eternal Criminal Record , James Jacobs detailed how it has become increasingly difficult to escape the mark of a criminal record. One way to “wipe the slate clean” is through the official expungement of criminal records. We assess public views toward this policy using a national sample of American adults ( N = 1,000). Public support for expungement is high for persons convicted of property and substance‐related offenses, w…
The Consequences of Official Labels: An Examination of the Rights Lost by the Mentally Ill and Mentally Incompetent Since 1989
Reintegration or stigmatization? Offenders’ expectations of community re-entry
Group and solo robberies: Do accomplices shape criminal form
Is There a Difference? Exploring Male and Female Correctional Officers' Definition of and Response to Conflict Situations
Although the use of force in corrections is a topic of interest, little is known about the factors that influence correctional officers' decisions. In particular, very little is known about similarities and differences between male and female correctional officers in their definitions of and responses to conflict situations. Interviews were conducted with 192 officers at a large southwestern jail. Using a realistic vignette of an inmate disobeyin…
The Consequences of Official Labels: An Examination of the Rights Lost by the Mentally Ill and Mentally Incompetent Ten Years Later
Gender and Crime among Felony Offenders: Assessing the Generality of Social Control and Differential Association Theories
Although often tested empirically on high school samples, differential association and social control theories have only infrequently been used to explain offending by felons. Based on a sample of 1,153 newly incarcerated felons, the authors examine the ability of differential association and social control theories to explain self-reported offending across types of crime and gender groups. Overall, the analyses lend support to both perspectives …
Strain, anger, and delinquent adaptations Specifying general strain theory
The Myth of Social Class and Crime Revisited: An Examination of Class and Adult Criminality
Although recent empirical research questions the conclusion that crime is highest in the lower class, this empirical literature is plagued by limited measures of social class or of crime and by a failure to study systematically the effect of social class on crime in the adult general population. The present work was undertaken in an attempt to rectify many of the inadequacies of the class‐crime research. Self‐report data were collected from a gen…
Age, self-control, and adults’ offending behaviors
The Social Consequences of Self‐control: Testing the General Theory of Crime
Gottfredson and Hirschi's recently introduced general theory of crime has received considerable empirical support. Researchers have found that low self‐control, the general theory's core concept, is related to lawbreaking and to deviant behaviors considered by Gottfredson and Hirschi to be “analogous” to crime. In this article, we extend this research by assessing the effects of low self‐control on crime and analogous behaviors and by using two d…
Religion and Crime Reexamined: The Impact of Religion, Secular Controls, and Social Ecology on Adult Criminality
Since Hirschi and Stark's (1969) surprising failure to find religious (“hellfire”) effects on delinquency, subsequent research has generally revealed an inverse relationship between religiosity and various forms of deviance, delinquency, and crime. The complexity of the relationship and conditions under which it holds, however, continue to be debated. Although a few researchers have found that religion's influence is noncontingent, most have foun…
Strain, anger, and delinquent adaptations Specifying general strain theory
The Myth of Social Class and Crime Revisited: An Examination of Class and Adult Criminality
Although recent empirical research questions the conclusion that crime is highest in the lower class, this empirical literature is plagued by limited measures of social class or of crime and by a failure to study systematically the effect of social class on crime in the adult general population. The present work was undertaken in an attempt to rectify many of the inadequacies of the class‐crime research. Self‐report data were collected from a gen…
Age, self-control, and adults’ offending behaviors
Who Wears the Maga Hat? Racial Beliefs and Faith in Trump
On the basis of a 2019 YouGov survey of white respondents ( n = 734), the impact of racial beliefs on support for Donald Trump was explored. The analysis revealed that in addition to racial resentment, white nationalism-a desire to keep the United States white demographically and culturally-was strongly related to faith in Trump. Analyses based on a 2019 Amazon Mechanical Turk survey yielded similar results and also showed that white nationalism …
The Correctional Orientation of Prison Wardens: Is the Rehabilitative Ideal Supported
Over the past two decades, the ideology ostensibly governing correctional policy has been transformed, it is claimed, from liberal‐rehabilitative to conservative‐punitive. Little empirical in formation is available, however, on whether those who manage correctional institutions—prison wardens—manifest a punitive or reformative orientation to their work Data from a national survey indicate that, while placing a prime emphasis on maintaining custod…
Religion, social bonds, and delinquency
Although criminologists have generally been indifferent or even hostile to the idea that religion inhibits criminal deviance, evidence of a consistent inverse relationship between religion and deviance—including crime and delinquency—has steadily accumulated over the last three decades. Yet controversy abounds concerning the extent to which this relationship is shaped by offense type, group affiliation, and other religious and social contexts. So…
Are guns the new dog whistle? Gun control, racial resentment, and vote choice
Two principal movers of American politics appear increasingly to be connected: racism and guns. The racial content underlying gun rights rhetoric, however, is rarely made explicit during political campaigns. As such, it is possible that espousing pro‐gun messages may be an effective way to surreptitiously court prejudiced voters without transgressing popular egalitarian norms. In other words, gun rights rhetoric may function as a racial dog whist…
Beyond the eternal criminal record: Public support for expungement
Research Summary In The Eternal Criminal Record , James Jacobs detailed how it has become increasingly difficult to escape the mark of a criminal record. One way to “wipe the slate clean” is through the official expungement of criminal records. We assess public views toward this policy using a national sample of American adults ( N = 1,000). Public support for expungement is high for persons convicted of property and substance‐related offenses, w…
Reintegration or stigmatization? Offenders’ expectations of community re-entry
Gun Owners and Gun Control: Shared Status, Divergent Opinions
After each mass public shooting, an inevitable debate surrounding the tools used to carry out the attack ensues. This debate is marked by two sides: those who endorse controlling access to firearms and those who oppose restrictions to the Second Amendment. Implicit in this dialogue is the assumption that gun owners are a homogenous group who stand in opposition to the gun control legislation. Using a national sample of American gun-owning adults,…
Group and solo robberies: Do accomplices shape criminal form
The Consequences of Official Labels: An Examination of the Rights Lost by the Mentally Ill and Mentally Incompetent Ten Years Later
Racial attitudes and belief in redeemability: Most Whites believe justice‐involved Black people can change
Public belief in redeemability reduces punitiveness and increases support for policy measures such as rehabilitation, expungement, and housing and employment opportunities. Although racial attitudes are known to influence a wide range of criminal justice policy opinions, their effects on beliefs about redeemability and condemnation have not been fully explored. Using data from a 2019 YouGov survey of a national sample of White U.S. adults (N = 76…
An apple in one hand, a gun in the other: Public support for arming our nation's schools
Research summary In the wake of repeated school shootings, today's youth have acquired the label of the “mass shooting generation.” Another fitting label would be the “armed school generation.” Most states now permit school security officers to carry firearms, and at least 466 school districts in 19 states allow teachers or staff members to be armed. In this context, understanding public opinion about guns in schools is essential. Using a 2018 na…
The Consequences of Official Labels: An Examination of the Rights Lost by the Mentally Ill and Mentally Incompetent Since 1989
Racial Sympathy and Support for Capital Punishment: A Case Study in Concept Transfer
Beliefs about race, especially racial resentment, are key predictors of public support for capital punishment and punitiveness generally. Drawing on a conceptual innovation by political scientist Jennifer Chudy, we explore the utility of transferring into criminology her construct of racial sympathy – or Whites' concern about Blacks' suffering. First, across three data sets, we replicate Chudy's finding that racial sympathy and resentment are emp…
The Correctional Orientation of Bermuda Prison Guards: An Assessment of Attitudes Toward Punishment and Rehabilitation
This study surveys all Bermuda correctional officers in an attempt to determine their attitudes toward a custody or rehabilitative orientation in handling inmates. When employing the Cullen, et al. (1989) correctional orientation measures, we found Bermuda officers more supportive of treatment for inmates than American officers surveyed by Cullen, et al. (1989). In addition, we found that officers' education, income, and rank significantly affect…
The impact of parental controls on delinquency
The consequences of official labels: A research note on rights lost by the mentally ill, mentally incompetent, and convicted felons
Reducing the Legal Consequences of a Felony Conviction: A National Survey of State Statutes
Offenders convicted of a felony are restricted from exercising a number of civil rights. This paper surveys the statutes for each state in order to determine the available legal methods for restoring a convicted individual's civil rights. Specifically, the methods investigated in the statutes were pardon, expungement of conviction, and the automatic restoration of civil rights upon the completion of sentence. While the number of restoration proce…
Catholics and capital punishment: Do Pope Francis’s teachings matter in policy preferences
In the United States, Catholics make up more than 50 million members of the adult population, or about one in five Americans. It is unclear whether their religious affiliation shapes Catholics’ views on public policy issues, ranging from the legality of abortion to criminal justice practices. Capital punishment is especially salient, given that Pope Francis announced in 2018—as official Catholic Church teaching—that the death penalty is “inadmiss…
Reducing the legal consequences of a felony conviction: A national survey of state statutes ten years later
This study surveys all state and federal statutes in an effort to determine the current legal procedures available for restoring a convicted felon's civil rights, and then compares the findings with those of Burton et al. (1988). The findings report virtually no changes in legal codes over the past ten years by states to increase pardons, expungement, or automatic restoration of rights opportunities for former offenders. Southern states continue …
Reducing the Legal Consequences of a Felony Conviction: A National Survey of State Statutes
Offenders convicted of a felony are restricted from exercising a number of civil rights. This paper surveys the statutes for each state in order to determine the available legal methods for restoring a convicted individual's civil rights. Specifically, the methods investigated in the statutes were pardon, expungement of conviction, and the automatic restoration of civil rights upon the completion of sentence. While the number of restoration proce…
The consequences of official labels: A research note on rights lost by the mentally ill, mentally incompetent, and convicted felons
The Correctional Orientation of Bermuda Prison Guards: An Assessment of Attitudes Toward Punishment and Rehabilitation
This study surveys all Bermuda correctional officers in an attempt to determine their attitudes toward a custody or rehabilitative orientation in handling inmates. When employing the Cullen, et al. (1989) correctional orientation measures, we found Bermuda officers more supportive of treatment for inmates than American officers surveyed by Cullen, et al. (1989). In addition, we found that officers' education, income, and rank significantly affect…
The Correctional Orientation of Prison Wardens: Is the Rehabilitative Ideal Supported
Over the past two decades, the ideology ostensibly governing correctional policy has been transformed, it is claimed, from liberal‐rehabilitative to conservative‐punitive. Little empirical in formation is available, however, on whether those who manage correctional institutions—prison wardens—manifest a punitive or reformative orientation to their work Data from a national survey indicate that, while placing a prime emphasis on maintaining custod…
The impact of parental controls on delinquency
Religion and Crime Reexamined: The Impact of Religion, Secular Controls, and Social Ecology on Adult Criminality
Since Hirschi and Stark's (1969) surprising failure to find religious (“hellfire”) effects on delinquency, subsequent research has generally revealed an inverse relationship between religiosity and various forms of deviance, delinquency, and crime. The complexity of the relationship and conditions under which it holds, however, continue to be debated. Although a few researchers have found that religion's influence is noncontingent, most have foun…
Religion, social bonds, and delinquency
Although criminologists have generally been indifferent or even hostile to the idea that religion inhibits criminal deviance, evidence of a consistent inverse relationship between religion and deviance—including crime and delinquency—has steadily accumulated over the last three decades. Yet controversy abounds concerning the extent to which this relationship is shaped by offense type, group affiliation, and other religious and social contexts. So…
The Social Consequences of Self‐control: Testing the General Theory of Crime
Gottfredson and Hirschi's recently introduced general theory of crime has received considerable empirical support. Researchers have found that low self‐control, the general theory's core concept, is related to lawbreaking and to deviant behaviors considered by Gottfredson and Hirschi to be “analogous” to crime. In this article, we extend this research by assessing the effects of low self‐control on crime and analogous behaviors and by using two d…
Reducing the legal consequences of a felony conviction: A national survey of state statutes ten years later
This study surveys all state and federal statutes in an effort to determine the current legal procedures available for restoring a convicted felon's civil rights, and then compares the findings with those of Burton et al. (1988). The findings report virtually no changes in legal codes over the past ten years by states to increase pardons, expungement, or automatic restoration of rights opportunities for former offenders. Southern states continue …
Gender, Self-Control, and Crime
This article assesses empirically whether Gottfredson and Hirschi's “general theory” can account for the “gender gap” in crime and, when rival theories are included in the analysis, can explain criminal behavior for both males and females. Based on a sample of 555 adults, the results indicate that the relationship of gender to crime becomes nonsignificant when self-control is introduced into the analysis. Further, when males and females are analy…
Age, self-control, and adults’ offending behaviors
Gender and Crime among Felony Offenders: Assessing the Generality of Social Control and Differential Association Theories
Although often tested empirically on high school samples, differential association and social control theories have only infrequently been used to explain offending by felons. Based on a sample of 1,153 newly incarcerated felons, the authors examine the ability of differential association and social control theories to explain self-reported offending across types of crime and gender groups. Overall, the analyses lend support to both perspectives …
Strain, anger, and delinquent adaptations Specifying general strain theory
The Myth of Social Class and Crime Revisited: An Examination of Class and Adult Criminality
Although recent empirical research questions the conclusion that crime is highest in the lower class, this empirical literature is plagued by limited measures of social class or of crime and by a failure to study systematically the effect of social class on crime in the adult general population. The present work was undertaken in an attempt to rectify many of the inadequacies of the class‐crime research. Self‐report data were collected from a gen…
The Consequences of Official Labels: An Examination of the Rights Lost by the Mentally Ill and Mentally Incompetent Ten Years Later
Is There a Difference? Exploring Male and Female Correctional Officers' Definition of and Response to Conflict Situations
Although the use of force in corrections is a topic of interest, little is known about the factors that influence correctional officers' decisions. In particular, very little is known about similarities and differences between male and female correctional officers in their definitions of and responses to conflict situations. Interviews were conducted with 192 officers at a large southwestern jail. Using a realistic vignette of an inmate disobeyin…
Group and solo robberies: Do accomplices shape criminal form
Reintegration or stigmatization? Offenders’ expectations of community re-entry
The Consequences of Official Labels: An Examination of the Rights Lost by the Mentally Ill and Mentally Incompetent Since 1989
Belief in Redeemability and Punitive Public Opinion: “Once a Criminal, Always a Criminal” Revisited
In 2009, Maruna and King presented results from a British survey showing that the public’s belief in the redeemability of people who committed offenses curbed their level of punitiveness. Based on a 2017 national survey in the United States ( n = 1,000), the current study confirms that redeemability is negatively related to punitive attitudes. In addition, the analyses reveal that this belief predicts support for rehabilitation and specific inclu…
Beyond the eternal criminal record: Public support for expungement
Research Summary In The Eternal Criminal Record , James Jacobs detailed how it has become increasingly difficult to escape the mark of a criminal record. One way to “wipe the slate clean” is through the official expungement of criminal records. We assess public views toward this policy using a national sample of American adults ( N = 1,000). Public support for expungement is high for persons convicted of property and substance‐related offenses, w…
An apple in one hand, a gun in the other: Public support for arming our nation's schools
Research summary In the wake of repeated school shootings, today's youth have acquired the label of the “mass shooting generation.” Another fitting label would be the “armed school generation.” Most states now permit school security officers to carry firearms, and at least 466 school districts in 19 states allow teachers or staff members to be armed. In this context, understanding public opinion about guns in schools is essential. Using a 2018 na…
Catholics and capital punishment: Do Pope Francis’s teachings matter in policy preferences
In the United States, Catholics make up more than 50 million members of the adult population, or about one in five Americans. It is unclear whether their religious affiliation shapes Catholics’ views on public policy issues, ranging from the legality of abortion to criminal justice practices. Capital punishment is especially salient, given that Pope Francis announced in 2018—as official Catholic Church teaching—that the death penalty is “inadmiss…
Who Wears the Maga Hat? Racial Beliefs and Faith in Trump
On the basis of a 2019 YouGov survey of white respondents ( n = 734), the impact of racial beliefs on support for Donald Trump was explored. The analysis revealed that in addition to racial resentment, white nationalism-a desire to keep the United States white demographically and culturally-was strongly related to faith in Trump. Analyses based on a 2019 Amazon Mechanical Turk survey yielded similar results and also showed that white nationalism …
Gun Owners and Gun Control: Shared Status, Divergent Opinions
After each mass public shooting, an inevitable debate surrounding the tools used to carry out the attack ensues. This debate is marked by two sides: those who endorse controlling access to firearms and those who oppose restrictions to the Second Amendment. Implicit in this dialogue is the assumption that gun owners are a homogenous group who stand in opposition to the gun control legislation. Using a national sample of American gun-owning adults,…
Psychology (32 works) · Criminology (30 works) · Political science (25 works) · Crime Patterns and Interventions (24 works) · Social Psychology (24 works) · Law (23 works) · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis (18 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Law (14 works) · Social Psychology (14 works)