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Ever since the highly publicized Texas case in which a wealthy, Caucasian teenager invoked ‘affluenza’ as a mitigating factor during his homicide trial, public discourse has debated the appropriateness of considering wealth during criminal sentences. Underlying this debate is a question about race: would a black defendant have the same chance of successfully using the affluenza defense? Intersectionality suggests that considerations of class, as implicated by the affluenza debate, are necessarily conditioned by understandings of race. This research examines whether public opinion supports the idea that extreme wealth contributes to criminal offending; whether affluence should be considered during sentencing; and whether a black defendant would able to use the affluenza defense successfully. Examining public opinion data from a statewide poll in Pennsylvania, this research explores public opinion on affluenza and examines whether race and other demographic characteristics influence the attribution process. The researchers use multivariate models to investigate significant predictors tied to respondents’ opinions, and they make observations about the impact of these factors on due process in sentencing procedures. This research provides an important first step in exploring whether the public perceives affluenza to be related to offending, related punitiveness, and the interplay of race with that attribution process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Within the last two decades, scholars have studied public opinion on racial profiling in multiple contexts, yet there have been limited studies that have examined whether public opinion on racial profiling is consistent across these unique contexts. Using a random sample of White adults from Pennsylvania, we studied whether perceptions on the discriminatory nature of racial profiling, and the perceived effectiveness of this practice in airports, retail settings, and traffic stops, form two distinct latent measures. We found that perceptions of racial profiling as discriminatory are general across these multiple contexts; the same was found to be true for perceptions of effectiveness as well. These latent measures also had different correlates by age and gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests core tenets of the theory of African-American offending proposed by Unnever and Gabbidon. Their theory posits that African-Americans have a common worldview on matters of race that is related to their offending. However, Unnever and Gabbidon further hypothesize that immigrant blacks do not fully embrace the worldview shared by US-born blacks. Using a 2008 national Gallup poll, we examine whether US-born blacks share a common worldview and whether foreign-born blacks differ in their opinions on key issues including: criminal injustices, the state of American race relations, attitudes towards immigration and illegal immigrants, and the perception of mobility within American society. The results partially confirm their two key hypotheses; there are no entrenched differences in the public opinions of US-born blacks on race-related matters while immigrant blacks do not wholly endorse their worldview. We discuss the implications of these two findings in relation to how scholars conceptualize offending among blacks. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using open-ended survey questions, this study looks to expand on prior race and crime public opinion research by examining Philadelphia area residents' views as to why they believed Blacks and Hispanics are overrepresented in the criminal justice system. The results reveal that Philadelphia citizens do have distinct opinions, in that a majority of participants discussed several contributing factors. Respondents believed that family influences, economic reasons, and lack of education were top contributing factors to both Black and Hispanic disproportionality. Generally speaking, similarities were found in individual participants' responses to both Black and Hispanic disproportionality questions, with a few notable exceptions. White respondents were significantly more likely to believe that economic factors contribute to the overrepresentation of Blacks in the criminal justice system. Finally, participants' answers to the Black and Hispanic questions did not differ based on the race of the respondent. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examined a national sample of more than 600 Black Americans and their views on bias in the American criminal justice system. The research found that 26% of the Black respondents did not believe there was bias in the American criminal justice system. To explore the segment of respondents holding these views, we separated the sample into Blacks who believe there is bias in the system (referred to as the discrimination thesis or DT supporters) and those who opposed this belief (referred to as the no-discrimination thesis or NDT supporters). The NDT supporters were more likely to be younger, male, less educated, and have lower income than those respondents who supported the DT. NDT supporters were also more likely to believe that Blacks and Whites had equal job opportunities, have more confidence in the police, and believe that racism was not widespread. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There is a need to explore trends in data use by researchers in criminology to assess the limitations of the knowledge base in the discipline. The current study explores the use of data published in three top criminology journals over a 10-year period to review: (1) data types (primary, secondary, or both), (2) the age of the data, and (3) whether scholars using data at least a decade old mention it as a limitation. The study found that the time dimension of data varied by publication source. A heavy reliance on secondary data was observed across all journals. Studies using only secondary data tended to have older data on average when compared to other data types. A majority of articles using data at least a decade old did not mention it is a shortcoming. The paper concludes by discussing advantages and disadvantages of relying on secondary data within the discipline of criminology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]