NCJ Number
196606
Journal
Criminal Justice Policy Review Volume: 13 Issue: 3 Dated: September 2002 Pages: 199-218
Editor(s)
Nanci Koser Wilson
Date Published
September 2002
Length
20 pages
Annotation
This study investigates whether policy makers that represent counties with relatively high percentages of threatening populations are more likely to prioritize criminal justice over education than policy makers representing counties with relatively low percentages of such populations.
Abstract
A random sample of county-level policy makers nationwide, including council/commission heads, elected county executives, and county administrators, were analyzed to identify the factors associated with the relative prioritization of two institutions of social control, that of criminal justice and of education. The survey data was obtained from the nationwide 1993 County Policy Survey. The questions addressed were, do county level policy makers prioritize criminal justice over education or vice versa? And, if prioritization exists, what factors are associated with that preference? It is noted that, traditionally, sociologists and criminologists consider social control institutions as working together, thus the tension between criminal justice and education is an issue of particular concern. Policy makers were found to be more likely to prioritize criminal justice over education when a large proportion of 16- to 19-year-old county residents were not officially employed in the labor market or enrolled in school. It was concluded that county policy makers tended to favor direct forms of social control such as criminal justice over ideological forms such as education, as the level of unsupervised county residents of prime street-crime age increased, and that this policymaking effect differed between the South and other parts of the United States. Table, appendix, references