Seriousness of Crime Cross-Culturally - The Impact of Religiosity

• NCJ Number: 93355
• Journal: Criminology Volume: 22 Issue: 1 Dated: (February 1984) Pages: 39-59
• Author(s): S S Evans; J E Scott
• Date Published: 1984
• Length: 21 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Revised version of a paper presented at the American Sociological Association's annual meeting in San Francisco, September 6-10, 1982.

Annotation

This study examines the perceptions of the seriousness of offenses: first, by examining perceptions of a wide range of offenses for respondents from two very divergent cultures, the United States and the Middle East, second, by assessing the perceived severity of some 17 sanctions for respondents from these two cultures and finally, by assessing the impact of religiosity on the perceived seriousness of crime.

Abstract

In addition, both the magnitude estimation and category techniques for measuring the seriousness of crime are utilized and the results from using these two techniques are compared. (Publisher abstract)