J D Unnever
Biographic Data
| ID | 46062 |
|---|---|
| NAME | J D Unnever |
| GIVEN NAMES | J D |
| FAMILY NAME | Unnever |
| SIGNATURE | UNNEVER J D |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of South Florida Sarasota–Manatee |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9311-0254 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 40 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 604 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 40 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1980 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 16 |
Racial Ignorance and the Electoral Cycle: Understanding Changes in Colorblind Frames during the Obama and Trump Eras
We use data from the American National Election Study (ANES) collected between 1986 and 2020 to examine trends in colorblind frames, identifying cognitions that deny or downplay the persistence of racism. We use hierarchical age-period-cohort (HAPC) models to investigate whether ascription to colorblind frames varies across age, periods, and birth cohorts, examining period changes while controlling for changes in cohort composition. Following the…
Structural Racism and Criminal Violence: An Analysis of State-Level Variation in Homicide
We advance a structural racism approach to understanding the variation in homicide across the U.S. states. We conceptualize structural racism by juxtaposing the conditions for Blacks with those for Whites across multiple domains. We also include two ideological beliefs, racial resentments and Whites perceptions that their racialized social status is threatened by minority gains. The results show that higher Black homicide rates are associated wit…
Is Collective Efficacy a Theory of Offending? Unraveling the Relationship between Individual-Level Perceptions of Collective Efficacy and Youth Offending
This study seeks to reaffirm the value of collective efficacy as a theory of offending and highlight a crucial individual-level mechanism through which collective efficacy may operate: individual-level perceived collective efficacy—subjective collective efficacy. We highlight the need to distinguish between individual-level perceptions of collective efficacy and the macro-level construct of collective efficacy. Analyzing data from the PHDCN, our …
Black Males, Impulsivity, and Externalizing Behaviors: A Black Criminology Analysis
In this paper, we explored whether the relationship between externalizing behaviors and impulsivity may have racialized dimensions. To do so, we uniquely constructed an unbalanced panel dataset from the PHDCN-LCS, which allowed us to examine the within-individual relationships between being a Black male, impulsivity, and externalizing behaviors. Based on the tenets of a Black Criminology, we suggested that because of their exposure to racism, Bla…
Race, Racism, and the Cool Pose: Exploring Black and White Male Masculinity
Scholars argue that racial oppression uniquely causes Black males to construct a definition of their masculinity-the 'Cool Pose'-that is different from White male masculinity. In this paper, using a nationally representative survey conducted in 2018, we examined whether young Black males were more likely than White male youths to feel greater pressure to conform to the Cool Pose. We analyzed six measures of the Cool Pose. We found no evidence tha…
Race, Gender, and Perceptions of Peer Delinquency: A Within-Subject Analysis
We generated a within-subject analysis that assessed whether changes in delinquency from the same youth were associated with changes in the degree to which the youth perceived the delinquency of their peers across three waves of data. We hypothesized that the effect of within-person changes in perceptions of peer delinquency on changes in delinquency across time should be greatest among young black males. The results revealed that a within-person…
The status of race in public sector work: Implications for emotion management and job satisfaction
African Americans consistently report lower levels of job satisfaction relative to whites. Using survey data from 1,456 public service employees, we examine whether racial disparities in job satisfaction are related to how African Americans and whites manage their emotions while at work. We contend that race acts as a master status within the workplace that locates African Americans in a subordinate social position to whites and may contribute to…
Race, Crime, and Public Opinion
An extensive body of research examines the question of whether public opinions about crime and control have become racialized. Opinions are racialized when there are significant differences between African Americans and whites in their attitudes. Opinions are also racialized when racial prejudices and animosities are a principal reason why dominant group members strongly support punitive crime control policies. The literatures considers racializa…
Racial–ethnic Threat, Out‐group Intolerance, and Support for Punishing Criminals: A Cross‐national Study
Scholars often have used the group threat thesis to explain why punitiveness varies across places. This research regularly has found that punitiveness is harsher in places with a larger minority population. Yet researchers only have had a rudimentary grasp of why this is the case. Moreover, most prior research has focused only on the United States, giving us little knowledge of whether the group threat thesis is a viable explanation of cross‐nati…
A Theory of African American Offending
A little more than a century ago, the famous social scientist W.E.B. Du Bois asserted that a true understanding of African American offending must be grounded in the "real conditions" of what it means to be black living in a racial stratified society. Today and according to official statistics, African American men – about six percent of the population of the United States – account for nearly sixty percent of the robbery arrests in the United St…
Global support for the death penalty
The recently released Gallup International 2000 Millennium Survey Poll collected data from individuals residing in 59 countries. The focus of this research was to analyze these data to examine whether the abolition movement has ushered in a new ‘collective sensibility’ about the death penalty or whether global attitudes toward capital punishment are characterized by deep divisions. The research assumes that the long-term stability of abolition wi…
Never too late: Public optimism about juvenile rehabilitation
Policy decisions with respect to juvenile offenders oscillate between rehabilitation and punishment, and the effectiveness of these two approaches, including which one for which type of offender, has yet to be realized. Less studied is the extent to which the public favors one approach or the other generally, and whether the public believes that there is an age at which it may be too late to help a juvenile offender turn away from a life of crime…
The Social Sources of Americans' Punitiveness: A Test of Three Competing Models
The sustained movement to “get tough” on crime, especially through mass imprisonment, has prompted several prominent efforts to explain the public's harshness toward crime. From the extant literature, we demarcate the following three competing theories of public punitiveness: the escalating crime‐distrust model, the moral decline model, and the racial animus model. Controlling for other known predictors of crime‐related opinions, we test the expl…
Racial–ethnic Intolerance and Support for Capital Punishment: A Cross‐national Comparison
This article tests cross‐nationally the minority group threat thesis that public sentiments toward repressive crime‐control policies reflect conflicted racial and ethnic relations. Using multiple data sets representing France, Belgium, the Netherlands, East and West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Denmark, Great Britain, Greece, Spain, Finland, Sweden, Austria, Canada, Ireland, and Portugal, we examine whether racial and ethnic intolerance—animus, re…
God Imagery and Opposition to Abortion and Capital Punishment: A Partial Test of Religious Support for the Consistent Life Ethic
Abortion and the death penalty are two of the most contentious issues in American public life. Previous scholarship has documented religious variations in attitudes toward each of these hotly contested issues. However, scant research has explored how religious factors affect opposition to both abortion and capital punishment, two key elements of a consistent life ethic. This study offers a partial test of religious support for the consistent life…
Empathetic identification and punitiveness: A middle-range theory of individual differences
Studies reveal that some Americans are more willing than others to endorse harsh measures to control crime. We advance this literature by presenting a model that offers an integrated explanation of why some Americans are more punitive than others. Scholars have found that people construct images of offenders that reflect those disseminated by elites, the media, and popular culture. These images can vary across types of crime and can change over t…
Gender, Bullying Victimization, and Juvenile Delinquency: A Test of General Strain Theory
Bullying has emerged as a salient problem in the school environment. Using a sample of 2,437 middle-school students from a metropolitan Virginia area, we explore the impact of school bullying victimization on delinquent involvement and substance use. The analysis is guided by general strain theory (GST). Consistent with GST, bullying victimization has a significant, if weak, direct relationship with wayward conduct. This effect is robust across g…
Race, Racism, and Support for Capital Punishment
There is a clear racial divide in support for the death penalty, with whites favoring and blacks opposing this sanction. This divide has persisted for decades and remains statistically and substantively significant even when controls are introduced for the known correlates of death penalty attitudes. A meaningful portion of this chasm is explained, however, by racism, with whites who manifest animus to blacks being more likely to embrace the leth…
Racial and ethnic perceptions of injustice: Testing the core hypotheses of comparative conflict theory
Two Worlds Far Apart: Black‐white Differences in Beliefs About Why African‐american Men Are Disproportionately Imprisoned
Analyzing The Washington Post, Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University 2006 African American Survey, the current project focuses on three related issues. First, I examine whether African Americans and whites share a common “sensibility” or “cognitive landscape” when considering why African‐American men are disproportionately imprisoned. Second, the current research investigates whether the sensibilities held by African Americans…
Public Support for Getting Tough on Corporate Crime: Racial and Political Divides
The recent wave of corporate wrongdoing has raised the issue of whether the public is concerned about the control of lawlessness in the business world. Using a national probability sample, we explore whether Americans want to enact stricter regulations of the stock market and advocate more punitive criminal sanctions for corporate executives who conceal their company's true financial condition. The findings reveal that Americans generally favor g…
Public Support for Attacking the "Root Causes" of Crime: The Impact of Egalitarian and Racial Beliefs
Based on a sample drawn from the 2000 American National Election Survey, we explore the sources of public support for policies aimed at punishing individual offenders as opposed to attacking the social structural sources of crime. The analysis revealed that support for attacking "root causes" was less pronounced among those who perceived crime rates to be rising and who were less educated, Southern, authoritarian, and unfavorable to welfare recip…
Reassessing the Racial Divide in Support for Capital Punishment: The Continuing Significance of Race
This project investigates the racial divide in support for capital punishment. The authors examine whether race has a direct effect on support for capital punishment and test whether the influence of race varies across class, being a native southerner, confidence in government officials, political orientation, and religious affiliation. Using data drawn from the General Social Survey, they find a substantial racial divide, with African Americans …
“A Liberal Is Someone Who Has Not Been Mugged”: Criminal Victimization and Political Beliefs
An often‐repeated claim by conservative commentators attributes continuing liberal beliefs to the fact that progressives “have not been mugged.” This claim thus portrays leftist views on public policy, including crime, as utopian, if not disingenuous—as held by people who have not had to face harsh realities. Using national‐level data from the General Social Survey that span two decades, we test this “mugging thesis.” Controlling for an array of …
Citizen assessment of local criminal courts: Does fairness matter
The Social Sources of Americans' Punitiveness: A Test of Three Competing Models
The sustained movement to “get tough” on crime, especially through mass imprisonment, has prompted several prominent efforts to explain the public's harshness toward crime. From the extant literature, we demarcate the following three competing theories of public punitiveness: the escalating crime‐distrust model, the moral decline model, and the racial animus model. Controlling for other known predictors of crime‐related opinions, we test the expl…
The Racial Divide in Support for the Death Penalty: Does White Racism Matter
Using data from the 2000 National Election Study, this research investigates the sources of the racial divide in support for capital punishment with a specific focus on white racism. After delineating a measure of white racism, we explore whether it can account for why a majority of African Americans oppose the death penalty while most whites support it. The results indicate that one-third of the racial divide in support for the death penalty can…
Images of God and Public Support for Capital Punishment: Does a Close Relationship With a Loving God Matter
This study argues that the nature and intensity of a person's relationship with God creates a transposable cognitive schema that shapes people's views toward public policies such as executing convicted murderers. In this context, we investigate whether Americans who report having a close personal relationship with a loving God are less likely to support the death penalty. We hypothesize that such a relationship tempers the tendency to see punitiv…
Empathetic identification and punitiveness: A middle-range theory of individual differences
Studies reveal that some Americans are more willing than others to endorse harsh measures to control crime. We advance this literature by presenting a model that offers an integrated explanation of why some Americans are more punitive than others. Scholars have found that people construct images of offenders that reflect those disseminated by elites, the media, and popular culture. These images can vary across types of crime and can change over t…
Two Worlds Far Apart: Black‐white Differences in Beliefs About Why African‐american Men Are Disproportionately Imprisoned
Analyzing The Washington Post, Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University 2006 African American Survey, the current project focuses on three related issues. First, I examine whether African Americans and whites share a common “sensibility” or “cognitive landscape” when considering why African‐American men are disproportionately imprisoned. Second, the current research investigates whether the sensibilities held by African Americans…
Racial–ethnic Intolerance and Support for Capital Punishment: A Cross‐national Comparison
This article tests cross‐nationally the minority group threat thesis that public sentiments toward repressive crime‐control policies reflect conflicted racial and ethnic relations. Using multiple data sets representing France, Belgium, the Netherlands, East and West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Denmark, Great Britain, Greece, Spain, Finland, Sweden, Austria, Canada, Ireland, and Portugal, we examine whether racial and ethnic intolerance—animus, re…
Direct and Organizational Discrimination in the Sentencing of Drug Offenders
This study examines direct and organizational discrimination in the sentencing of 313 convicted male drug offenders in Miami, Florida. Direct discrimination occurs if the defendant's race/ethnicity and/or economic status influences the judge's sentencing decision, after controlling for the effects of the seriousness of the defendant's prior record and present drug offense, the type of lawyer retained by the defendant, and the outcome of the bail …
Public Support for Getting Tough on Corporate Crime: Racial and Political Divides
The recent wave of corporate wrongdoing has raised the issue of whether the public is concerned about the control of lawlessness in the business world. Using a national probability sample, we explore whether Americans want to enact stricter regulations of the stock market and advocate more punitive criminal sanctions for corporate executives who conceal their company's true financial condition. The findings reveal that Americans generally favor g…
Public Support for Attacking the "Root Causes" of Crime: The Impact of Egalitarian and Racial Beliefs
Based on a sample drawn from the 2000 American National Election Survey, we explore the sources of public support for policies aimed at punishing individual offenders as opposed to attacking the social structural sources of crime. The analysis revealed that support for attacking "root causes" was less pronounced among those who perceived crime rates to be rising and who were less educated, Southern, authoritarian, and unfavorable to welfare recip…
Bullies, aggressive victims, and victims: Are they distinct groups
This study analyzed a sample representing six middle schools that included 206 pure bullies, 514 pure victims, and 206 aggressive victims. Aggressive or provocative victims are students who have been bullied but also bully other students. This research assessed whether aggressive victims engaged in different patterns of behavior and had dissimilar socialization experiences than pure bullies and pure victims. Factors that were considered include m…
Never too late: Public optimism about juvenile rehabilitation
Policy decisions with respect to juvenile offenders oscillate between rehabilitation and punishment, and the effectiveness of these two approaches, including which one for which type of offender, has yet to be realized. Less studied is the extent to which the public favors one approach or the other generally, and whether the public believes that there is an age at which it may be too late to help a juvenile offender turn away from a life of crime…
Racial–ethnic Threat, Out‐group Intolerance, and Support for Punishing Criminals: A Cross‐national Study
Scholars often have used the group threat thesis to explain why punitiveness varies across places. This research regularly has found that punitiveness is harsher in places with a larger minority population. Yet researchers only have had a rudimentary grasp of why this is the case. Moreover, most prior research has focused only on the United States, giving us little knowledge of whether the group threat thesis is a viable explanation of cross‐nati…
Race Differences in Criminal Sentencing
Race differences in criminal court sentencing outcomes have been of long–standing interest to sociologists. The findings about this topic are conflicting. Among the several explanations offered for the contradictory findings are that studies used old data, emphasized capital offenses, and lacked proper controls and statistical procedures. We present an analysis which corrects some of the problems of earlier studies. Race differences in sentencing…
Executing the Innocent and Support for Capital Punishment: Implications for Public Policy
Research Summary: The issue of whether innocent people have been executed is now at the center of the debate concerning the legitimacy of capital punishment. The purpose of this research was to use data collected by the Gallup Organization in 2003 to investigate whether Americans who believed that an innocent person had been executed were less likely to support capital punishment. We also explored whether the association varied by race, given tha…
Race, Racism, and Support for Capital Punishment
There is a clear racial divide in support for the death penalty, with whites favoring and blacks opposing this sanction. This divide has persisted for decades and remains statistically and substantively significant even when controls are introduced for the known correlates of death penalty attitudes. A meaningful portion of this chasm is explained, however, by racism, with whites who manifest animus to blacks being more likely to embrace the leth…
Racial and ethnic perceptions of injustice: Testing the core hypotheses of comparative conflict theory
Middle school victims of bullying: Who reports being bullied
This study examined factors that influence a student's decision to report being bullied at school. An anonymous survey of 2,437 students in six middle schools identified 898 students who had been bullied, including 25% who had not told anyone that they were bullied and 40% who had not told an adult about their victimization. We investigated chronicity and type of bullying, school climate, familial, demographic, and attitudinal factors that influe…
God Imagery and Opposition to Abortion and Capital Punishment: A Partial Test of Religious Support for the Consistent Life Ethic
Abortion and the death penalty are two of the most contentious issues in American public life. Previous scholarship has documented religious variations in attitudes toward each of these hotly contested issues. However, scant research has explored how religious factors affect opposition to both abortion and capital punishment, two key elements of a consistent life ethic. This study offers a partial test of religious support for the consistent life…
Global support for the death penalty
The recently released Gallup International 2000 Millennium Survey Poll collected data from individuals residing in 59 countries. The focus of this research was to analyze these data to examine whether the abolition movement has ushered in a new ‘collective sensibility’ about the death penalty or whether global attitudes toward capital punishment are characterized by deep divisions. The research assumes that the long-term stability of abolition wi…
Race, Racism, and the Cool Pose: Exploring Black and White Male Masculinity
Scholars argue that racial oppression uniquely causes Black males to construct a definition of their masculinity-the 'Cool Pose'-that is different from White male masculinity. In this paper, using a nationally representative survey conducted in 2018, we examined whether young Black males were more likely than White male youths to feel greater pressure to conform to the Cool Pose. We analyzed six measures of the Cool Pose. We found no evidence tha…
Citizen assessment of local criminal courts: Does fairness matter
Structural Racism and Criminal Violence: An Analysis of State-Level Variation in Homicide
We advance a structural racism approach to understanding the variation in homicide across the U.S. states. We conceptualize structural racism by juxtaposing the conditions for Blacks with those for Whites across multiple domains. We also include two ideological beliefs, racial resentments and Whites perceptions that their racialized social status is threatened by minority gains. The results show that higher Black homicide rates are associated wit…
Race, Gender, and Perceptions of Peer Delinquency: A Within-Subject Analysis
We generated a within-subject analysis that assessed whether changes in delinquency from the same youth were associated with changes in the degree to which the youth perceived the delinquency of their peers across three waves of data. We hypothesized that the effect of within-person changes in perceptions of peer delinquency on changes in delinquency across time should be greatest among young black males. The results revealed that a within-person…
The status of race in public sector work: Implications for emotion management and job satisfaction
African Americans consistently report lower levels of job satisfaction relative to whites. Using survey data from 1,456 public service employees, we examine whether racial disparities in job satisfaction are related to how African Americans and whites manage their emotions while at work. We contend that race acts as a master status within the workplace that locates African Americans in a subordinate social position to whites and may contribute to…
Formal versus substantive justice: The legislative history of the surface mining control and reclamation act of 1977∗
Race Differences in Criminal Sentencing
Race differences in criminal court sentencing outcomes have been of long–standing interest to sociologists. The findings about this topic are conflicting. Among the several explanations offered for the contradictory findings are that studies used old data, emphasized capital offenses, and lacked proper controls and statistical procedures. We present an analysis which corrects some of the problems of earlier studies. Race differences in sentencing…
Direct and Organizational Discrimination in the Sentencing of Drug Offenders
This study examines direct and organizational discrimination in the sentencing of 313 convicted male drug offenders in Miami, Florida. Direct discrimination occurs if the defendant's race/ethnicity and/or economic status influences the judge's sentencing decision, after controlling for the effects of the seriousness of the defendant's prior record and present drug offense, the type of lawyer retained by the defendant, and the outcome of the bail …
The Social Ecology of Crime
Enforcement or Negotiation: Constructing a Regulatory Bureaucracy
Race Relations in Prisons
Formal versus substantive justice: The legislative history of the surface mining control and reclamation act of 1977∗
Parental management, ADHD, and delinquent involvement: Reassessing Gottfredson and Hirschi's general theory
A core proposition of Gottfredson and Hirschi's general theory of crime is that ineffective parenting fosters low self-control in children, which leads to delinquent conduct. Using a sample of 2,472 students, we examined the impact of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) on self-control and delinquency. The analysis revealed three main findings. First, low self-control was a strong predictor of both self-reported delinquency and self-r…
Bullying, Self-Control, and Adhd
We investigated the influence of low self-control and Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) on bullying and bully victimization in a sample of 1,315 middle school students using a school survey. Students who reported taking medication for ADHD were at increased risk for bullying as well as victimization by bullies. The correlation between ADHD status and bullying could be explained by low self-control, a construct theorized by Gottfreds…
Middle school victims of bullying: Who reports being bullied
This study examined factors that influence a student's decision to report being bullied at school. An anonymous survey of 2,437 students in six middle schools identified 898 students who had been bullied, including 25% who had not told anyone that they were bullied and 40% who had not told an adult about their victimization. We investigated chronicity and type of bullying, school climate, familial, demographic, and attitudinal factors that influe…
Turning the Other Cheek: Reassessing the Impact of Religion on Punitive Ideology
Religion has long been recognized as an underlying aspect of correctional policies. Researchers, however, have only recently begun to move beyond considerations of how fundamentalist Christian affiliations might shape preferences for punitive correctional policies. The present study broadens the extant research by examining multiple aspects of religious beliefs and how they affect support for capital punishment and harsher local courts. Analyses …
Executing the Innocent and Support for Capital Punishment: Implications for Public Policy
Research Summary: The issue of whether innocent people have been executed is now at the center of the debate concerning the legitimacy of capital punishment. The purpose of this research was to use data collected by the Gallup Organization in 2003 to investigate whether Americans who believed that an innocent person had been executed were less likely to support capital punishment. We also explored whether the association varied by race, given tha…
Bullies, aggressive victims, and victims: Are they distinct groups
This study analyzed a sample representing six middle schools that included 206 pure bullies, 514 pure victims, and 206 aggressive victims. Aggressive or provocative victims are students who have been bullied but also bully other students. This research assessed whether aggressive victims engaged in different patterns of behavior and had dissimilar socialization experiences than pure bullies and pure victims. Factors that were considered include m…
Christian Fundamentalism and Support for Capital Punishment
Few public policy issues have inflamed passions as consistently and as strongly as the debate over capital punishment. Religious denominations have been deeply involved on both sides of the issue, drawing both on teachings and traditions of justice and on those that emphasize the dignity of human life. Scholarly researchers have investigated the role that religious beliefs play in shaping sentiments toward crime control policies, with a particula…
Images of God and Public Support for Capital Punishment: Does a Close Relationship With a Loving God Matter
This study argues that the nature and intensity of a person's relationship with God creates a transposable cognitive schema that shapes people's views toward public policies such as executing convicted murderers. In this context, we investigate whether Americans who report having a close personal relationship with a loving God are less likely to support the death penalty. We hypothesize that such a relationship tempers the tendency to see punitiv…
Reassessing the Racial Divide in Support for Capital Punishment: The Continuing Significance of Race
This project investigates the racial divide in support for capital punishment. The authors examine whether race has a direct effect on support for capital punishment and test whether the influence of race varies across class, being a native southerner, confidence in government officials, political orientation, and religious affiliation. Using data drawn from the General Social Survey, they find a substantial racial divide, with African Americans …
“A Liberal Is Someone Who Has Not Been Mugged”: Criminal Victimization and Political Beliefs
An often‐repeated claim by conservative commentators attributes continuing liberal beliefs to the fact that progressives “have not been mugged.” This claim thus portrays leftist views on public policy, including crime, as utopian, if not disingenuous—as held by people who have not had to face harsh realities. Using national‐level data from the General Social Survey that span two decades, we test this “mugging thesis.” Controlling for an array of …
Citizen assessment of local criminal courts: Does fairness matter
The Racial Divide in Support for the Death Penalty: Does White Racism Matter
Using data from the 2000 National Election Study, this research investigates the sources of the racial divide in support for capital punishment with a specific focus on white racism. After delineating a measure of white racism, we explore whether it can account for why a majority of African Americans oppose the death penalty while most whites support it. The results indicate that one-third of the racial divide in support for the death penalty can…
Gender, Bullying Victimization, and Juvenile Delinquency: A Test of General Strain Theory
Bullying has emerged as a salient problem in the school environment. Using a sample of 2,437 middle-school students from a metropolitan Virginia area, we explore the impact of school bullying victimization on delinquent involvement and substance use. The analysis is guided by general strain theory (GST). Consistent with GST, bullying victimization has a significant, if weak, direct relationship with wayward conduct. This effect is robust across g…
Race, Racism, and Support for Capital Punishment
There is a clear racial divide in support for the death penalty, with whites favoring and blacks opposing this sanction. This divide has persisted for decades and remains statistically and substantively significant even when controls are introduced for the known correlates of death penalty attitudes. A meaningful portion of this chasm is explained, however, by racism, with whites who manifest animus to blacks being more likely to embrace the leth…
Racial and ethnic perceptions of injustice: Testing the core hypotheses of comparative conflict theory
Two Worlds Far Apart: Black‐white Differences in Beliefs About Why African‐american Men Are Disproportionately Imprisoned
Analyzing The Washington Post, Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University 2006 African American Survey, the current project focuses on three related issues. First, I examine whether African Americans and whites share a common “sensibility” or “cognitive landscape” when considering why African‐American men are disproportionately imprisoned. Second, the current research investigates whether the sensibilities held by African Americans…
Public Support for Getting Tough on Corporate Crime: Racial and Political Divides
The recent wave of corporate wrongdoing has raised the issue of whether the public is concerned about the control of lawlessness in the business world. Using a national probability sample, we explore whether Americans want to enact stricter regulations of the stock market and advocate more punitive criminal sanctions for corporate executives who conceal their company's true financial condition. The findings reveal that Americans generally favor g…
Public Support for Attacking the "Root Causes" of Crime: The Impact of Egalitarian and Racial Beliefs
Based on a sample drawn from the 2000 American National Election Survey, we explore the sources of public support for policies aimed at punishing individual offenders as opposed to attacking the social structural sources of crime. The analysis revealed that support for attacking "root causes" was less pronounced among those who perceived crime rates to be rising and who were less educated, Southern, authoritarian, and unfavorable to welfare recip…
Empathetic identification and punitiveness: A middle-range theory of individual differences
Studies reveal that some Americans are more willing than others to endorse harsh measures to control crime. We advance this literature by presenting a model that offers an integrated explanation of why some Americans are more punitive than others. Scholars have found that people construct images of offenders that reflect those disseminated by elites, the media, and popular culture. These images can vary across types of crime and can change over t…
Psychology (31 works) · Political science (29 works) · Criminology (27 works) · Social Psychology (22 works) · Sociology (22 works) · Crime Patterns and Interventions (21 works) · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis (21 works) · Law (21 works) · Law (14 works) · Social Psychology (14 works)