TOWARD A BIFURCATED THEORY OF EMOTIONAL DETERRENCE

Since Hobbes (1957 [1651] and Beccaria (1963 [1764]), scholars have theorized that the emotion of fear is critical for deterrence. Nevertheless, contemporary deterrence researchers have mostly overlooked the distinction between perceived sanction risk and fear of apprehension. Whereas perceived risk is a cognitive judgment, fear involves visceral feelings of anxiety or dread. Equally important, a theory explicating the influence of deterrence on both criminal propensity and situational offending has remained elusive. We develop a theoretical model in which perceived risk and fear are distinguished at both the general and situational levels. We test this theoretical model with data from a set of survey‐based experiments conducted in 2016 with a nationwide sample of adults (N = 965). We find that perceived risk and fear are empirically distinct and that perceived risk is positively related to fear at both the general and situational levels. Certain background and situational factors have indirect effects through perceived risk on fear. In turn, perceived risk has indirect effects through fear on both criminal propensity and situational intentions to offend. Fear's inclusion increases explanatory power for both criminal propensity and situational offending intentions. Fear is a stronger predictor than either self‐control or prior offending of situational intentions to offend.     

VULNERABLE VICTIMS,MONSTROUS OFFENDERS,AND UNMANAGEABLE RISK: EXPLAINING PUBLIC OPINION ON THE SOCIAL CONTROL OF SEX CRIME

With the possible exception of terrorists, sex offenders in the United States experience a greater degree of punishment and restriction than any other offender group, nonviolent or violent. Members of the public overwhelmingly support “get tough” sex crime policies and display an intense hostility toward persons labeled “sex criminals.” The theoretical literature has identified three models potentially explaining public opinion on the social control of sex crime: the victim‐oriented concerns model, the sex offender stereotypes model, and the risk‐management concerns model. However, empirical work that directly tests these models is absent. This article addresses that gap by analyzing national survey data that includes measures of the key concepts outlined in the different theoretical models and items gauging support for punitive sex crime laws as well as support for sex offender treatment. The findings provide partial support for all three models but suggest that extant theories can better explain support for punitive sex crime policies than views about sex offender treatment.     

THE PRAGMATIC AMERICAN: EMPIRICAL REALITY OR METHODOLOGICAL ARTIFACT?

Scholars widely agree that the public is pragmatic about criminal justice. The empirical basis for this conclusion is the failure in several previous studies to find a sizable negative relationship between dispositional and situational crime attributions, or between support for punitive and rehabilitative crime policies. We suggest, however, that public pragmatism may be an artifact of the use of unidirectional question batteries in prior research to measure attribution styles and policy support. When such questions are used, acquiescent responding can introduce systematic error that is positively correlated across items and scales. Drawing on data from an experiment with a national sample (N = 826) of Internet panelists, we examine how this methodological approach impacts the bivariate correlations and multivariate relationships between attribution styles and between support for punitive and rehabilitative crime policies. The findings reveal that using unidirectional sets of questions to measure these concepts likely results in 1) inflated alpha reliability coefficients, 2) an underestimation of the magnitude of the negative relationships between attribution styles and between punitiveness and support for rehabilitation, and 3) an underestimation of the extent to which punitiveness and support for rehabilitation are driven by the same factors, working in opposite directions.     

Investment, Consumption and the Current Economic Situation

CURRENTLY, ＂consumptiondriven growth＂ is overwhelmingly popular in China＇s economic circle, while the term ＂investment＂ is becoming a negative one. Even worse, some online commentators are citing ＂investment＂ as the cause of every problem in the Chinese economy. In spite of this trend, I am with the mi- nority still placing importance on invest- ment.     

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.     

HEURISTICS AND BIASES,RATIONAL CHOICE,AND SANCTION PERCEPTIONS*

The relevance of several cognitive heuristics and related biases for rational choice perspectives on crime, and for perceptions of sanction risk, were investigated. We present findings from a series of randomized experiments, embedded in two nationwide surveys of American adults (18 and older) in 2015 (N = 1,004 and 623). The results reveal that offender estimates of detection risk are less probabilistically precise and more situationally variable than under prevailing criminological perspectives, most notably, rational choice and Bayesian learning theories. This, in turn, allows various decision‐making heuristics—such as anchoring and availability—to influence and potentially bias the perceptual updating process.     

Multimember Districts' Effect on Collaboration between U.S. State Legislators

In this article, I demonstrate that multimember districts form a basis for collaboration between two legislators. In order to maximize the limited incumbency advantages they possess, legislators from multimember districts form coalitions in an effort to generate greater credit‐claiming opportunities and policy benefits for their district. In order to test this conception, I utilize a natural experiment and an opportunity to observe institutional change in North Carolina's elimination of multimember districts during the 2000–2002 redistricting cycle. Coupled with cross‐sectional analysis of several states that use both single‐member and multimember districts, empirical evidence strongly corroborates my conception of multimember districts as a basis for collaboration between representatives.