FORGIVENESS AND FUNDAMENTALISM: RECONSIDERING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CORRECTIONAL ATTITUDES AND RELIGION*

Although research typically has failed to establish a relationship between religious affiliation and correctional attitudes, recent assessments have revealed that fundamentalist Christians tend to be more punitive than are nonfundamentalists. These studies have advanced our understanding considerably, but their conceptualization of religion and correctional attitudes has been limited. Using a statewide survey, the present study demonstrates that compassionate as well as fundamentalist aspects of religious beliefs are related to public correctional preferences. Further, our results reveal that religion influences support for rehabilitation as well as punitiveness. These findings suggest the need for scholars to think more broadly about the role of religion in criminology.     

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 punitiveness as an appropriate response to human failings. Individuals who hold a loving God image are more likely to believe that God responds to those who have “failed” or “sinned” by demonstrating unconditional love, forgiveness, and mercy. Accordingly, support for capital punishment is problematic because it contradicts the image of a merciful, forgiving deity; God's purpose—and admonition to believers—is to demonstrate compassion toward those who have trespassed against others. We test these possibilities using the 2004 General Social Survey (GSS). Controlling for a range of religious factors and other known predictors of death penalty attitudes, the results show that Americans with a personal relationship with a loving God are less likely to support capital punishment for convicted murderers.     

RACIAL TYPIFICATION OF CRIME AND SUPPORT FOR PUNITIVE MEASURES

This paper assesses whether support for harsh punitive policies toward crime is related to the racial typification of crime for a national random sample of households (N=885), surveyed in 2002. Results from OLS regression show that the racial typification of crime is a significant predictor of punitiveness, independent of the influence of racial prejudice, conservatism, crime salience, southern residence and other factors. This relationship is shown to be concentrated among whites who are either less prejudiced, not southern, conservative and for whom crime salience is low. The results broaden our understanding of the links between racial threat and social control, beyond those typically associated with racial composition of place. They also resonate important themes in what some have termed modern racism and what others have described as the politics of exclusion.     

STRICTLY LIABLE: GOVERNMENTAL USE OF THE PARENT–CHILD RELATIONSHIP AS A BASIS FOR HOLDING VICTIMS LIABLE FOR THEIR CHILD'S WITNESS TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Studies estimate that between three and ten million children in the United States witness domestic violence annually. Although studies have demonstrated a co‐occurrence of domestic violence and child abuse, there is no concrete evidence to support the assumption that a child's exposure to domestic violence increases the risk to the child of abuse or neglect. Recently the New York State Court of Appeals determined that a child's witness to abuse does not suffice, in and of itself, to show that removal of the child is necessary or that removal is in the “best interests” of the child. Programs which have developed alternatives to presumptive removal understand the importance of viewing the interests of the battered parent and children as being in accord with each other rather than in opposition. Private and government sponsored programs have demonstrated some success in protecting the parent‐child relationship, ensuring the safety of both parent and child, and increasing accountability of batterers while reducing the necessity for removals. Alternative programs are less costly to the state than foster care, and emotionally less costly to the families.     

VICARIOUS HOMICIDE VICTIMIZATION AND SUPPORT FOR CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: A TEST OF BLACK'S THEORY OF LAW*

This article examines the relationship between experiencing the homicide of a family member, friend, or acquaintance and the likelihood of support for capital punishment. Homicide victims'family and friends are often portrayed as strong advocates of the death penalty. Yet, the effect of vicarious homicide victimization on support for capital punishment has never been systematically examined, and in fact, Donald Black's theory of law suggests an inverse relationship between the two variables. Using data from the 1988 General Social Survey, this research tests hypotheses derived from Black's theory regarding the relationship among social intimacy, cultural status, and the use of law in response to conflict. Multivariate logistic regression models suggest that the experience of personally knowing a homicide victim significantly affects one's likelihood of support for the death penalty, but the effect of vicarious victimization varies for black and white respondents. The empirical patterns indicate that in addition to race, religious orientation and gender also play important roles in determining the relationship between vicarious homicide victimization and support for the death penalty.     

ETHNIC THREAT AND SOCIAL CONTROL: EXAMINING PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR JUDICIAL USE OF ETHNICITY IN PUNISHMENT*

Research on social inequality in punishment has focused for a long time on the complex relationship among race, ethnicity, and criminal sentencing, with a particular interest in the theoretical importance that group threat plays in the exercise of social control in society. Prior research typically relies on aggregate measures of group threat and focuses on racial rather than on ethnic group composition. The current study uses data from a nationally representative sample of U.S. residents to investigate the influence of more proximate and diverse measures of ethnic group threat, examining public support for the judicial use of ethnic considerations in sentencing. Findings indicate that both aggregate and perceptual measures of threat influence popular support for ethnic disparity in punishment and that individual perceptions of criminal and economic threat are particularly important. Moreover, we find that perceived threat is conditioned by aggregate group threat contexts. Findings are discussed in relation to the growing Hispanic population in the rapidly changing demographic structure of U.S. society.     

USING COUNTY-BASED MARKETS TO SUPPORT AND FEDERAL RESERVE MARKETS TO IMPLEMENT BANK MERGER POLICY

In this paper, we consider three issues raised by the apparentinconsistency between the current research practice of usingcounty-based markets (Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs)and non-MSA counties) to investigate the validity of the theoreticalunderpinnings of bank merger policy and the current regulatorypractice of using Federal Reserve (FR) banking markets, whichoften do not follow county lines, to implement that policy.Using a national sample of bank and thrift branch deposit data,we find that county-based areas cannot simply substitute forFR markets in the implementation of bank merger policy. Forexample, numerous potential mergers would raise competitiveissues in county-based areas, but not in FR markets, and viceversa. We also conclude that, because of the relative difficultyof assembling demographic data for non-county-based areas, itis impractical to consistently use FR markets in bank mergerpolicy research. However, we do find that, despite the inconsistenciesbetween the two types of markets, analysis that uses county-basedareas is relevant for bank merger policy that is implementedwith FR markets. For example, we find that profitability regressionresults using variables based on FR markets are similar to thosefound using variables based on MSAs and non-MSA counties.     

THE ATTITUDES OF WOMEN AND MEN IN POLICING: TESTING CONVENTIONAL AND CONTEMPORARY WISDOM*

Historically, women were excluded from policing because they were thought to be physically as well as temperamentally unsuited for the rigors of police work Despite the fact that most evaluations of behavior on the street reveal few differences in the way men and women perform most tasks, many police officers, as well as academicians and observers, believe that women bring a different set of attitudes and values to policing. However, there has been little research that either confirms or casts doubt upon these attitudinal differences. This study examines the conflicting predictions about gender and attitudes derived from theory about gender differences and sociological theory about occupational socialization, drawing upon the former to develop hypotheses about four dimensions of police attitudes: perspectives on the police role, attitudes toward citizens, evaluations of departments and coworkers, and occupational integration. These hypotheses are tested with data from the Police Services Study, which surveyed police officers in 24 departments. The results suggest that although men and women may not be equally integrated into their jobs as police officers, there are few differences in the ways men and women see their role, their clientele, or their departments.     

THE HUMAN RIGHT TO INFORMATION,THE ENVIRONMENT AND INFORMATION ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT: FROM THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION TO THE AARHUS CONVENTION

Citizen access to government-held information and the amelioration of environmental problems are considered statutory matters in the United States, but at the international level these are seen as fundamental human rights. In recent years two categories of human rights demanded by activists, the right to government information and the right to environmental protection, have converged into a new human right—the right to government information about the environment. The 1998 Aarhus Convention, binding in more than forty nations in Europe and Central Asia, is the first multilateral treaty to specifically denote a human right to government information about the environment. While the Aarhus Convention has some untested procedural difficulties and laborious bureaucratic requirements, the treaty can serve as a model for the world's nations at large, because citizen oversight of government actions toward the natural world is a powerful tool for those concerned about both the environment and government transparency.