Perceptions of the Seriousness of Crime and Attitudes Regarding Criminal Justice Issues: An Analysis of the 1982 American Broadcasting Corporation's News Poll of Public Opinion on Crime (open access)

Perceptions of the Seriousness of Crime and Attitudes Regarding Criminal Justice Issues: An Analysis of the 1982 American Broadcasting Corporation's News Poll of Public Opinion on Crime

This study deals with the analysis of public opinion about crime and attitudes regarding criminal justice issues along two major dimensions. The first part concerns how respondents rank crime among a list of nine social problems (unemployment, high interest rates, inflation, crime, the high cost of living, moral decline, taxes, dissatisfaction with the government, and Reagan). The second dimension examines some research questions. These are whether there was any association between the respondents' perception of crime trends and each of the following: demographic background, neighborhood safety, the death penalty, gun ownership, frequency of locking doors, avoidance of teenagers, and the evaluation of police job performance; and also whether there was any association between the respondents' victimization experience and seriousness of crime and police job performance. The data were obtained from the archives of the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research in Michigan.
Date: May 1987
Creator: Rotimi, Adewale R. (Adewale Rufus)
System: The UNT Digital Library