The gender gap in comparative perspective

Abstract. Although the 'gender gap' in Western democratic publics has received an increasing amount of scholarly attention, one interesting anomaly has not been addressed. At the level of many specific issues, women appear to be more liberal than men. However, at the level of general ideological orientations, women are either more conservative, or there are no significant gender differences. We explore this disjuncture between levels of cognitive abstraction through the 1984 Eurobarometer data and conclude that the left-right continuum appears to have a different meaning for men and for women. Women seem much more likely to regard the left-right space as referring to 'preservationist' values of religion and cultural homogeneity, and men conceptualize the left-right space in economic and 'New Polities' terms.     

FEAR,TV NEWS,AND THE REALITY OF CRIME*

Data from a 1997 survey of 2, 250 Florida residents are used to assess whether and how the reality of crime influences the relationship between watching TV news and fear of crime. Local crime rates, victim experience, and perceived realism of crime news operationalize the reality of crime and are included in ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates of the TV news and fear of crime relationship. These measures of reality are also used as contexts for disaggregating the analysis. Local and national news are related to fear of crime independent of the effects of the reality of crime and other controls. Local news effects are stronger, especially for people who live in high crime places or have recent victim experience. This contextual pattern of findings is consistent with a conclusion that TV news is most influential when it resonates the experience or crime reality of respondents.     

UNEMPLOYMENT AND PROPERTY CRIME: A TARGET‐SPECIFIC ASSESSMENT OF OPPORTUNITY AND MOTIVATION AS MEDIATING FACTORS*

Most recent unemployment‐crime (U‐C) research is informed by the possibility that unemployment could both increase motivation for crime and decrease criminal opportunities. The mediating links of motivation and opportunity, though often assumed, have almost never been measured. We directly test for the potential mediating effects of opportunity and motivation using county‐level data for target‐specific crime rates such as convenience store robberies, motorcycle thefts, etc. We link these with data on the supply and value of corresponding crime targets (e.g., number and annual sales of convenience stores). Opportunity levels were generally unrelated to property crime rates and do not appear to mediate the U‐C relationship.     

RACIAL COMPOSITION OF NEIGHBORHOOD AND FEAR OF CRIME*

A relationship between fear of crime and the racial composition of place has been widely assumed but seldom tested. Interviews conducted with a random sample of adults residing in a major state capital in the early months of 1994-at the height of a media-driven panic about violent crime-are used to test the proposition that as the percentage of blacks in one's neighborhood increases, so too will the fear of crime. We use objective and perceptual measures of racial composition, and we examine the effects of racial composition and minority status on fear of crime for black and white respondents. We distinguish between perceived safety or risk of victimization and fear, with the former used as an intervening variable in path models of fear of crime. Results show that actual racial composition has no consequence for the fear of crime when other relevant factors are controlled. Perceived racial composition is significant for fear among whites, but not among African-Americans. In particular, the perception that one is in the racial minority in one's neighborhood elevates fear among whites but not among blacks. All effects of perceived racial composition on fear are indirect and mediated by the perception of risk of crime.     

RECIDIVIST IMPACTS OF DIFFERENTIAL SENTENCING PRACTICES FOR BURGLARY OFFENDERS

The research reported here attempts to examine the recidivist impacts of probationary sentences versus incarceration. Statistically controlled comparisons were run on a probability sample of 100 offenders sentenced for residential or commercial burglary convictions in 1971. Subsequent arrest, conviction. and imprisonment data were gathered from official agency records through March of 1975. The results of this study indicate that for persons sentenced for burglary the likelihood of subsequent conviction for a felony or for any crime is less for probationer offenders than for any other sentence type. The strongest predictors of recidivism (defined as subsequent conviction for crime) were age, previous incarceration experience, and sentence type. Length of sentence. type of release, and number of previous arrests were essentially unrelated to subsequent rates of recidivism.     

CONTROLLING OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN: RACIALIZED VIEWS OF DELINQUENCY AND WHITES’ PUNITIVE ATTITUDES TOWARD JUVENILE OFFENDERS*

The juvenile justice system was founded on, and until recently developed around, the idea that society should afford delinquents more leniency and rehabilitative care than adult criminals because of their lower levels of physical and cognitive development and, thus, diminished culpability for law violations and higher amenability to treatment. The past four decades, however, have witnessed a sustained movement to recriminalize delinquency through the enactment of policies that treat juvenile offenders more like their adult counterparts. Feld (1999a) and others have argued that this punitive turn in juvenile justice is in part a result of the racialization of delinquency and violent victimization in the post–Civil Rights era. This study provides the first test of the key assumption underlying this thesis, namely, that Whites’ support for getting tough with juvenile offenders is in part tied to racialized views of youth crime. Drawing on data from a recent national survey, we examine the extent to which relative racial typifications about delinquency and victimization, as well as racial resentment, are associated with general punitiveness toward juvenile offenders as well as support for lower minimum ages of criminal justice jurisdiction. Regression results show that Whites who hold such typifications and those who are more racially resentful are both more likely to embrace punitive youth justice policies and favor transfers for younger offenders. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

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.