51. Christian Religion and Support for the Death Penalty: A Comparison of Measurement Strategies.
- Author
-
Wozniak, Kevin and Lewis, Andrew
- Abstract
Despite the fact that the Bible provides support for both punitive and merciful attitudes toward criminal punishment, analyses of the relationship between individuals' Christian religiosity and their punishment attitudes have generated empirically mixed results. In this paper, we argue that the inconsistency in the literature may be due to error in the way that religion is measured. Testing data from the General Social Survey, we contrast Smith's (1990) FUND scheme with Steensland et al.'s (2000) RELTRAD scheme, finding that the latter provides a superior fit to the data. The results suggest that evangelical Protestants are more likely to support the death penalty than non-Christians. Additionally, multi-item religious belief and behavior measures indicate that orthodox Christian beliefs increase support for the death penalty, while frequent practice of religious behaviors decreases support. We conclude with recommendations for how to further broaden the study of religion and attitudes toward punishment. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2009