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This paper reviews the literature relating physical appearance to perceptions of criminality or deviance. The content focuses on characteristics of the perceived but includes some data relative to the influence of perceiver characteristics in the perception process. Methodological procedures are analyzed along with the subject matter of the literature reviewed. The research settings of studies range from college classrooms to juvenile reformatories. The paper concludes with a discussion of future research directions and implications of the existing research for visual identification procedures utilized in police and court settings. One suggestion which emerges from this literature review, for example. is to monitor police lineups and other identification procedures to help offset the influence of physical appearance on the identification process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author of this article aims to share some ideas, concerns, and information on stigma, the literature on person perception, symbolic interactionism, labeling, and cognitive consistency theories that are combined with some disturbing observations of criminal justice processes. The result is a growing awareness of the possibility of addressing an important social issue while advancing social science theory. The emerging issue is that of the degree to which factors other than hard evidence determine what is done to, with, or for a person believed to have committed a deviant offense. The question for social science then is that of what factors, other than evidence, determine the disposition of cases involving alleged deviant acts.

This research addresses the general question of which factors other than evidence determine the outcomes of criminal justice processing. Specifically, it investigates the relationships between social background factors, beliefs and emotions, ad punitiveness toward deviants. The results offer support for the proposition that differing backgrounds are systematically linked with different views about human nature and society. The results also support the proposition that these variations in belief are linked to punitiveness toward deviants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Orientation, refers to a variety of qualities of actors that prepare or predispose them to respond to stimuli. Some commonly used terms in reference to orientations are: mood, feeling, values, response set, attitude, frame of reference, action tendency, mentality, ethos, etc. These concepts have at least three basic components: cognition, affect and action tendencies. Sociologists have long recognized the importance of the affective component for ordered human response. Efforts to identify, conceptualize and measure orientations have been many and varied, but the utility of such concepts has been unsatisfactory. The difficulty may lie in the level of abstraction of such conceptualizations and the lack of a basis in empirical data. To be more specific, it is fruitless to characterize a society as having a "sensate mentality" or an orientation, or having ethos or a "cosmopolitan" orientation. Efforts to identify, conceptualize, and measure orientations have been many and varied, but the utility of such concepts has been unsatisfactory.