Americans View Crime and Justice

A National Public Opinion Survey

Timothy J. Flanagan, Dennis R. Longmire, Timothy J. Flanagan, Dennis R. Longmire

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 1996
• Print ISBN:
  9780761903413
  9780761903406
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781452246499
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book should be made a part of any college level library that features holdings in social sciences. . . . Americans View Crime and Justice presents a national public opinion survey and its results on the issues. These edited results of a survey conducted in 1995 examine such issues as gun control, capital punishment, and juvenile crime, offering public opinion along with the analyses of a panel of criminologists. --The Midwest Book Review Readable and carefully edited, Americans View Crime and Justice reports and analyzes results from the recent National Crime and Justice Survey (NCJS), the richest and most wide-ranging investigation of public opinion on crime and justice issues in more than a decade. Conducted in June 1995, the survey features responses from 1,000 adults in the United States on now-volatile issues such as fear of crime, gun control, capital punishment, juvenile crime, and additional related topics of national concern. A distinguished panel of criminologists analyzes the collected data in this volume to present a comprehensive report on the development and current status of public opinion on these timely issues. Divided into three sections—context and framework; findings; and opinion, policy, and science—this authoritative volume also analyzes the implications of the survey data. Providing interesting insights and timely quantification of Americans? view of crime and justice, this volume offers a unique view of public opinion particularly important to the work of researchers, law enforcement personnel, policy makers, public officials, and students of criminology and criminal justice, law, and political science.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Preface
• Chapter 1 - Public Opinion on Crime and Justice: History, Development, and Trends
• Chapter 2 - America's Fear of Crime
• Chapter 3 - Support and Confidence: Public Attitudes Toward the Police
• Chapter 4 - Bringing the Offender to Heel: Views of the Criminal Courts
• Chapter 5 - Just and Painful: Attitudes Toward Sentencing Criminals
• Chapter 6 - Reform or Punish: Americans' Views of the Correctional System
• Chapter 7 - Americans' Attitudes about the Ultimate Weapon: Capital Punishment
• Chapter 8 - Guns and Gun Control
• Chapter 9 - The Modern Plague: Controlling Substance Abuse
• Chapter 10 - The Growing Threat: Gangs and Juvenile Offenders
• Chapter 11 - Public Opinion and Public Policy in Criminal Justice
• Chapter 12 - The Art and Science of Survey Research
• Chapter 13 - The National Opinion Survey on Crime and Justice—1995: Development and Methods
• Appendix: Survey Questionnaire: National Opinion Survey on Crime and Justice—1995
• References
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors