Title: Explaining Spatial Variation in Support for Capital Punishment: A Multilevel Analysis , By: Baumer, Eric P., Messner, Steven F., Rosenfeld, Richard, American Journal of Sociology, 00029602, Jan2003, Vol. 108, Issue 4
Database: Academic Search Premier


An extensive body of research has accumulated on the relationship between individual attributes and attitudes toward criminal justice policies, including the death penalty. For example, past studies have identified a broad set of personality characteristics and deeply held beliefs, such as authoritarianism, dogmatism, religious fundamentalism, and a belief in retribution, that give rise to a worldview supportive of harsh punishment (Neapolitan 1983; Bohm 1987; Finckenauer 1988; Grasmick et al. 1992; Smith and Wright 1992). However, although the literature acknowledges that public opinion about social issues is responsive to macrolevel events and conditions (e.g., Page and Shapiro 1992; Zaller 1992; Steiner 1999), very little attention has been directed to features of the social context that may influence punitive attitudes toward punishment in general and support for capital punishment more specifically.

Beckett and Sasson's (2000) assessment of the growth in popular support for punitive crime-control policies in the United States since the 1960s is a good example of research in the constructionist tradition. Although levels of serious criminal violence in the United States are high by comparative standards, Beckett and Sasson argue that they have not risen enough over the last 30 years to account for the growing harshness of public attitudes toward crime and criminals. Rather, changes in popular opinion on crime and punishment "reflect the ascendance of a particular way of framing the crime problem" (Beckett and Sasson 2000, p. 73). Conservative politicians, from Barry Goldwater to Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, exploited public concerns about crime and racial divisions with a "law and order" rhetoric that framed criminal behavior as a matter of individual moral choice encouraged by the permissive crime and welfare policies promoted by the liberals. The goal was to effect an electoral realignment, especially in the South, that would favor the Republicans by driving a wedge between working-class whites and blacks who had composed the traditional Democratic base. The law and order rhetoric, say Beckett and Sasson, was from the beginning a thinly veiled appeal to racial prejudice. There was never any question regarding the presumed racial identification of most of the violent criminals or welfare cheats the conservatives had in mind. The strategy worked. Public concern with crime and support for punitive crime-control policies grew within an increasingly conservative political climate that affected the views of liberals and conservatives alike (see also Garland 1990)....[5]

Our final hypotheses about contextual effects are also predicated on the basic premise of constructionism that social problems must be actively problematized and that elites play a prominent role in the process (e.g., Schneider 1985). These hypotheses elaborate the traditional constructionist approach by incorporating insights from conflict theory concerning the structural conditions that are likely to be conducive to the mobilization of public opinion on crime (Scheingold 1991; Garland 2000). A longstanding tradition of research informed by conflict theory has identified racial and economic divisions as conditions that threaten the rule of dominant groups and lead to more extensive and repressive forms of social control (e.g., Hawkins 1987; Liska 1992). The basic logic of the threat hypotheses is that whites and economic elites perceive nonwhites and poor people as threatening (Blumer 1958; Chambliss 1964; Blalock 1967; Chambliss and Seidman 1980; Quillian 1995, 1996). When these latter groups increase in relative size, the level of threat increases, and dominant groups exert pressure for greater crime control to protect the status quo....

Consistent with the work of Beckett and Sasson reviewed above, we propose that elites mobilize public opinion in the direction of more punitive attitudes to further their interests, and they are particularly likely to do so under threatening conditions. Accordingly, the relative size of the minority population and economic inequality should be positively related to death penalty support, net of the officially recorded homicide rate. A recent study by Jacobs and Carmichael (2002) that examined the presence of the death penalty in American states provides evidence consistent with these hypotheses. They found that states with relatively large minority populations and high levels of economic inequality were more likely than others to have legalized the death penalty. Also, in line with the constructionist hypothesis on the effects of political climate, their analyses revealed that measures of Republican legislative strength and conservative political climate are associated with death penalty legalization. Interestingly, they found no significant effects on the presence of capital punishment for violent crime rates or murder rates.
posted by Lloyd at 1:49 AM

Southern subculture of violence

http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/crimtheory/wolfgang.htm
The southern subculture of violence theory suggests that individuals socialized in the South learn to approve of violence in a wide range of situations and to view violence as important in enhancing their honor or reputation (Ellison, 1991: 1224). (Both per capita homicide and firearms ownership rates are higher in the South than in other regions of the U.S. (Ellison, 1991: 1223).)

Ellison (1991)

Using data from the 1983 General Social Survey, Ellison (1991) tested the hypothesis that there are regional differences in levels of individual support for violence. His findings support Dixon and Lizotte’s (1987) conclusion that whites are more likely than nonwhites to approve of certain types of violence, especially in response to defensive or retaliatory situations. Interestingly, his findings suggest that the southern subculture of violence is linked to certain aspects of southern religion (Ellison, 1991:1234).

Southern religion is distinguished by its strong preoccupation with the attainment of individual salvation from punishment at the hands of a wrathful God. Popular southern theology stresses the themes of moral judgment and divine punishment prominent in the Old Testament . . . These images may legitimize interpersonal violence in defense of the less powerful or in retaliation for deliberate affronts (Ellison, 1991: 1233).

Ellison, C. G. (1991). An eye for an eye? A note on the southern subculture of violence thesis. Social Forces, 69, 1223-1239.

posted by Lloyd at 1:33 AM