NCJ Number
178800
Journal
Journal of Criminal Justice Education Volume: 9 Issue: 1 Dated: Spring 1998 Pages: 39-57
Date Published
1998
Length
19 pages
Annotation
This 1992 survey of 683 college students examined their attitudes toward the death penalty, other criminal sanctions, and the war on drugs.
Abstract
Faculty members at each of four selected universities agreed to monitor the distribution of questionnaires to 397 students majoring in criminal justice and 286 students majoring in other areas. Summary scales were constructed to measure student views on the administration of criminal justice. Findings revealed that college seniors were consistently less likely than freshmen to hold punitive views, suggesting a liberalizing effect of the college experience. This liberalizing effect on attitudes toward criminal justice, however, was not apparent for criminal justice majors, particularly when attitudes of criminal justice seniors toward the death penalty were compared with those of criminal justice freshmen. Overall, views of criminal justice majors did not differ appreciably from views of other students. The authors found no support for the expectation that criminal justice majors with experience in criminal justice would express more conservative, more punitive views than criminal justice majors in general. An appendix contains the questions used to assess attitudes toward punishment. 53 references, 6 footnotes, and 7 tables