LIBERALISM AND FEAR AS EXPLANATIONS OF PUNITIVENESS |
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| Authors: | ROBERT H LANGWORTHY JOHN T WHITEHEAD |
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| Institution: | Robert H. Langworthy is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His current research and publication areas are police organization, elderly offenders, and public attitudes toward crime and criminal justice. John T. Whitehead is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His current research and publication areas are job burnout in corrections and the attitudes of correctional officers working in a novel early release program in Alabama. |
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| Abstract: | This paper explores the relationship between liberalism, victimization experience (both direct and vicarious), fear of victimization, and attitudes towards purposes of incarceration. The study makes use of a national public opinion poll conducted for ABC News in 1982. The major findings are that both fear and liberalism contribute to punitiveness but, more importantly, individual demographic characteristics are ambiguously related to punitiveness. It appears that demographic characteristics are related to punitiveness through a complex of other attitudinal associations—in this instance, fear and liberalism. Neither direct nor vicarious victimization had a direct effect on punishment attitudes. To the extent that victimization experience affects punitiveness, the effects are indirect through fear. |
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