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A cross-national study examines the minority group threat thesis that racial and ethnic intolerance predicts greater support for the death penalty. Findings indicate that people are significantly more likely to express support for capital punishment if they are racially or ethnically intolerant, suggesting a universal link between support for capital punishment and racial and ethnic animus among countries with conflicted racial and ethnic relations.

The article examines three competing theories of public punitiveness, namely, the escalating crime-distrust model, the moral decline model, and the racial animus model, to explain support for the death penalty and for a punitive crime-control approach. Evidence indicates partial support for each model, with racial animus having the most consistent effect on public opinion.

Comparative conflict theory is a theoretical statement proposed by Hagan, Shedd, and Payne (2005) to explain racial and ethnic variation in perceptions of injustice. Their theory asserted that White respondents perceive considerably less injustice than both African Americans and Hispanics (the racial--ethnic divide hypothesis) and that African Americans perceive less injustice than Hispanics (the racial gradient hypothesis). They also proposed that prior criminal justice experiences serve as a 'tipping point' for Hispanics in that Hispanics with prior negative criminal justice contacts will perceive more injustice than African Americans with similar prior negative experiences. This study tested these three hypotheses, finding support for the racial-ethnic divide and racial-gradient hypotheses, but not the differential sensitivity hypothesis. In addition, this study explored the racial and ethnic identity of Hispanics (i.e., 'White Hispanic' and 'Black Hispanic') and found that Hispanics, who were younger, less educated, and perceived some forms of injustice were more likely to identify themselves as being both Hispanic and Black.

The differences in opinions among whites and African Americans about the disproportionate imprisonment of African-American men and the role of African Americans' subordinate position in these differences are studied. Results show deep divisions among whites and a tendency for African Americans to hold a collective sensibility as to why African-American males are disproportionately imprisoned.

Public opinion about local court systems is an important area of scholarly inquiry that has received little empirical attention. This study utilized a survey implemented by the National Center for State Courts to examine the effect of perceptions of fairness (egalitarian and discriminatory) on respondent satisfaction with local court handling of criminal cases (violent criminal, drug, and juvenile delinquency). Findings from OLS regression analyses indicated that perception of both egalitarian and discriminatory fairness had an impact on respondent reported satisfaction with local court handling of criminal cases. The results of the analyses also suggested that instrumental concerns, in the context of perceptions that courts resolve cases in a timely manner, had a significant impact on public assessment of local criminal courts. By contrast, prior experiences with local courts and respondent demographic factors had little direct influence on respondent satisfaction with local criminal court handling of cases. Direction for future research and implications of the findings are discussed.

This study argues that the nature and intensity of a person's relationship with God creates a transposable cognitive schema that shapes people's views toward public policies such as executing convicted murderers. In this context, we investigate whether Americans who report having a close personal relationship with a loving God are less likely to support the death penalty. We hypothesize that such a relationship tempers the tendency to see punitiveness as an appropriate response to human failings. Individuals who hold a loving God image are more likely to believe that God responds to those who have 'failed' or 'sinned' by demonstrating unconditional love, forgiveness, and mercy. Accordingly, support for capital punishment is problematic because it contradicts the image of a merciful, forgiving deity; God's purpose-and admonition to believers-is to demonstrate compassion toward those who have trespassed against others. We test these possibilities using the 2004 General Social Survey (GSS). Controlling for a range of religious factors and other known predictors of death penalty attitudes, the results show that Americans with a personal relationship with a loving God are less likely to support capital punishment for convicted murderers

Scholars argue that racial oppression uniquely causes Black males to construct a definition of their masculinity—the “Cool Pose”—that is different from White male masculinity. In this paper, using a nationally representative survey conducted in 2018, we examined whether young Black males were more likely than White male youths to feel greater pressure to conform to the Cool Pose. We analyzed six measures of the Cool Pose. We found no evidence that young Black males were more likely than White male youths to feel greater pressure to use violence if provoked. However, we found that young Black males were more likely than White male youths to feel greater pressure to be physically and emotionally strong, play sports, and to dominate or control others. We conclude that research needs to move beyond idiosyncratic accounts of Black males’ cultural adaptations in order to explicate the developmental processes that affect how Black males living in a systemically racist society express their masculinity.

ABSTRACTAfrican Americans consistently report lower levels of job satisfaction relative to whites. Using survey data from 1,456 public service employees, we examine whether racial disparities in job satisfaction are related to how African Americans and whites manage their emotions while at work. We contend that race acts as a master status within the workplace that locates African Americans in a subordinate social position to whites and may contribute to greater emotion management effort and greater work-related consequences. The results indicate that, together with traditional indicators of job satisfaction, extensive emotion management efforts of African Americans explain their lower levels of job satisfaction relative to whites.

In recent years, criminologists have begun to focus more closely on how certain biosocial and/or neuropsychological factors may influence criminal and delinquent behaviour. One factor that is emerging as a potentially important correlate of such behaviour is Attention Deficit — often combined with hyperactivity — Disorder (ADD and/or ADHD). The results of the growing body of empirical literature assessing this link are, however, inconsistent. The present study subjects this body of research to a ‘meta-analysis' — or, ‘quantitative synthesis' — to establish both the overall effect of ADHD on crime and delinquency and the degree to which this relationship is conditioned by methodological factors across empirical studies. The analyses reveal a fairly strong association between measures of ADHD and criminal/delinquent behaviour. Nevertheless, these effects are not invariant across certain salient methodological characteristics. The implications for criminological theory and correctional policy are discussed.

This study examines direct and organizational discrimination in the sentencing of 313 convicted male drug offenders in Miami, Florida. Direct discrimination occurs if the defendant's race/ethnicity and/or economic status influences the judge's sentencing decision, after controlling for the effects of the seriousness of the defendant's prior record and present drug offense, the type of lawyer retained by the defendant, and the outcome of the bail proceedings. Organizational discrimination occurs if the economically disadvantaged and/or minority defendant cannot retain private attorneys or obtain pretrial release and these failures result in more severe sentences. I found both racial/ethnic discrimination and economic organizational discrimination in the sample.