RESPONSES OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM TO LEGISLATION PROVIDING MORE SEVERE THREATENED SANCTIONS

In 1971, the Tennessee legislature enacted legislation providing for mandatory jail sentences and driver's license revocations for anyone convicted of driving while intoxicated. This new law had no demonstrable impact on the highway traffic fatalities rate-the intended objective. This paper explores the reasons for this apparent lack of impact. Data suggest that, while there was some increase in the severity of sanctions imposed on drunken drivers, there was still a consistent tendency to suspend the jail sentences and grant drivers restricted driving privileges. Nor is there any reason to believe that the police intensified their efforts to apprehend larger numbers of drunken drivers. Thus, the more severe sanctions threatened in the new law were generally mitigated in practice. Some possible interpretations for this are offered.     

ATTITUDES TOWARD THE POLICE AND THE LARGER ATTITUDE COMPLEX

Growing concern with the effect of negative public attitudes toward the police on police-community polarization and morale and effectiveness has led to numerous efforts to improve the image of the policeman and to facilitate more positive relationships with the community. It is proposed that the eflectiveness of such programs is hindered by their failure to consider that public attitudes toward the police do not exist in isolation, but are a part of a broader complex of attitudes toward the system of legal justice and its various representatives. Data from four different samples of residents of a western state provide some tentative support for this hypothesis. Implications of the data for programs designed to improve police-community relationships are discussed.