Authority and punishment: on the ideological basis of punitive attitudes towards criminals

Gerber, Monica M. and Jackson, Jonathan (2016) Authority and punishment: on the ideological basis of punitive attitudes towards criminals. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 23 (1). pp. 113-134. ISSN 1321-8719

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Abstract

Why do people support tough sentencing of criminal offenders? Three explanations dominate the literature. The first is an instrumental perspective: people are concerned about becoming a victim of crime and they look to punishment to reduce future harm. The second is a relational perspective: people are concerned about community breakdown, and they support punishment to restore moral boundaries. The third is a psychological model based on ideological preferences: people desire conformity and authority in society, and they look to institutions to punish transgressions that threaten collective security. Building on the work of Tyler & Boeckmann (1997), two studies of London citizens (n1=13,929, n2=283) suggest a way of integrating these three perspectives. We show that right-wing authoritarianism predicts both the extent to which people worry about social threats and the extent to which they support harsh punitive measures. Bridging research from political psychology and criminology, we conclude with the idea that popular punitive sentiment is grounded in an uncritical submission to authorities, an adherence to conservative moral values, and consonant concerns about collective security and cohesion.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tppl20
Additional Information:	© 2015 Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law
Library of Congress subject classification:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology
Sets:	Departments > Methodology Research centres and groups > Mannheim Centre for Criminology
Date Deposited:	24 Mar 2015 16:23
URL:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/61331/

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