Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T21:29:14.010Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A TASTE FOR PUNISHMENT: Black and White Americans' Views on the Death Penalty and the War on Drugs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2004

Lawrence D. Bobo  and
Devon Johnson
Lawrence D. Bobo
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Department of African and African American Studies, Harvard University
Devon Johnson
Affiliation:
W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, Harvard University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It is commonly accepted that Black and White Americans hold divergent views about the criminal justice system. Furthermore, many accept the view that U.S. public opinion is unflinchingly punitive where issues of criminal justice policy are concerned, with this punitiveness among White Americans deriving to a significant degree from anti-Black prejudice. Using a series of survey-based experiments and large, nationally representative samples of White and African American respondents, we subject the questions of Black-White polarization, unyielding punitiveness, and the influence of racial prejudice to close scrutiny. Our results, first, confirm large Black-White differences in opinion with Blacks consistently less punitive than Whites. These differences are substantially a result of beliefs about the extent of racial bias in the criminal justice system. Second, the framing experiments suggest that responses to the death penalty are very different than responses to drug-related crimes like crack or powder cocaine use, with the former exhibiting far less malleability than the latter. Third, racial prejudice is a consistently large influence on White public opinion and a weaker, but sometimes important influence among Blacks as well. Implications for discourse on race and crime are also discussed.

Keywords

Death PenaltyCocaineCrackPublic OpinionCrimePrejudice
Type
STATE OF THE ART
Information
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , March 2004 , pp. 151 - 180
Copyright
© 2004 W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Adams, B. D. (1978) Inferiorization and self-esteem. Social Psychology Quarterly. 41: 442–53.Google Scholar
Applegate, Brandon et al. (1996) Assessing public support for three-strikes-and-you're-out laws: Global versus specific attitudes. Crime and Delinquency. 42(4): 517–534.Google Scholar
Barkan, Steven E. and Steven F. Cohn (1994) Racial prejudice and support for the death penalty by whites. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 31: 202–209.Google Scholar
Beckett, Katherine (1997). Making Crime Pay: Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics. New York: Oxford University Press.
Beckett, Katherine and Bruce Western (2001). Governing social marginality: Welfare, incarceration, and the transformation of state policy. In Garland (Ed.), Mass Imprisonment: Social Causes and Consequences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Blumer, Herbert (1958) Race prejudice as a sense of group position. Pacific Sociological Review, 1: 3–7.Google Scholar
Blumstein, Alfred (2001). Race and criminal justice. In Smelser, Wilson, and Mitchell (Eds.), America Becoming: Racial Trends and Their Consequences, Volume II, pp. 21–31. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Blumstein, Alfred and Jacqueline Cohen (1980) Sentencing of convicted offenders: An analysis of the public's view. Law and Society Review. 14: 223–261.Google Scholar
Bobo, Lawrence D. (1999) Prejudice as group position: Microfoundations of a sociological approach to racism and race relations. Journal of Social Issues, 55: 445–472.Google Scholar
Bobo, Lawrence D. and James R. Kluegel (1993) Opposition to race-targeting: Self-interest, stratification ideology, or racial attitudes? American Sociological Review, 58: 443–464.Google Scholar
Bohm, Robert M. (1991). American death penalty opinion, 1936–1986: A critical examination of the Gallup polls. In Bohm (Ed.), The Death Penalty in America: Current Research. Cincinnati, OH: Anderson.
Bohm, Robert M., Louise J. Clark, and Adrian F. Aveni (1991) Knowledge and death penalty opinion: A test of the Marshall hypotheses. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 28: 360–387.Google Scholar
Bowers, William (1993) Capital punishment and contemporary values: People's misgivings and the court's misperceptions. Law and Society Review, 27: 157–175.Google Scholar
Bureau of Justice Statistics (2002). Correctional Populations in the United States 1998—Statistical Tables. (Publication No. NCJ 192929). Washington, D.C.
Chambliss, William J. (1999). Power, Politics, and Crime. Boulder, CO: Westview.
Charles, Camille Z. (2000) Neighborhood racial-composition preferences: Evidence from a multiethnic metropolis. Social Problems, 47: 379–407.Google Scholar
Charles, Camille Z. (2001). Processes of racial residential segregation. In O'Connor, Bobo, and Tilly (Eds.), Urban Inequality: Evidence From Four Cities, pp. 217–271. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Clark, Kenneth B. (1965). Dark Ghetto. New York: Harper & Row.
Cohn, Steven F. and Steven E. Barkan ( forthcoming). Racial prejudice and public attitudes about the punishment of criminals. In Browning (Ed.), For the Common Good: A Critical Examination of Law and Social Control. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.
Cohn, Steven, Steven E. Barkan, and William A. Halteman (1991) Punitive attitudes toward criminals: Racial consensus or racial conflict? Social Problems, 38: 287–296.Google Scholar
Cole, David (1999). No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System. New York: The New Press.
Combs, Michael W. and John C. Comer (1984) Race and capital punishment: A longitudinal analysis. Phylon, 43: 350–359.Google Scholar
Cross, William E. (1991). Shades of Black: Diversity in African-American Identity. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Cullen, Francis T., Bonnie S. Fisher, and Brandon K. Applegate (2000) Public opinion about punishment and corrections. Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, 27: 1–79.Google Scholar
Delli Carpini, Michael X. and Scott Keeter (1997). What Americans Know About Politics and Why it Matters. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1996 [1899]). The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Ellsworth, Phoebe C. and Samuel R. Gross (1994) Hardening of the attitudes: Americans' views on the death penalty. Journal of Social Issues, 50: 19–52.Google Scholar
Ellsworth, Phoebe C. and Lee Ross (1983) Public opinion and capital punishment: A close examination of the views of abolitionists and retentionists. Crime and Delinquency, 29: 116–169.Google Scholar
Emerson, Michael O., George Yancey, and Karen J. Chai (2001) Does race matter in residential segregation?: Exploring the preferences of white Americans. American Sociological Review, 66: 922–935.Google Scholar
Fredrickson, George M. (1971). The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817–1914. New York: Harper and Row.
Garland, David (2001). Mass Imprisonment: Social Causes and Consequences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Gerber, Jurg and Simone Engelhardt-Greer (1996). Just and painful: Attitudes toward sentencing criminals. In Flanagan and Longmire (Eds.), Americans View Crime and Justice: A National Opinion Survey. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Grier, William H. and Price M. Cobbs (1968). Black Rage. New York: Basic Books.
Hagan, John and C. Albonetti (1982) Race, class, and the perception of criminal injustice in America. American Journal of Sociology, 88: 329–355.Google Scholar
Hawkins, Darnell F. (2001). Commentary on Randall Kennedy's overview of the justice system. In Smelser, Wilson, and Mitchell (Eds.), America Becoming: Racial Trends and Their Consequences, Volume II, pp. 32–51. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Henderson, Martha L. et al. (1997) The impact of race on perceptions of criminal injustice. Journal of Criminal Justice, 25: 447–462.Google Scholar
Higginbotham, A. Leon. (1996). Shades of Freedom: Racial Politics and Presumptions of the American Legal Process. New York: Oxford University Press.
Huang, W., and M. Vaughn (1996). Support and confidence: Public attitudes toward the police. In Flanagan and Longmire (Eds.), Americans View Crime and Justice: A National Survey of Public Opinion. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Hughes, Michael (1997). Symbolic racism, old-fashioned racism, and whites' opposition to affirmative action. In Tuch and Martin (Eds.), Racial Attitudes in the 1990s: Continuity and Change, pp. 45–75. Westport, CT.: Praeger.
Hurwitz, John and Mark Peffley (1997) Public perceptions of race and crime: The role of racial stereotypes. American Journal of Political Science, 41: 375–401.Google Scholar
Hurwitz, Jon and Mark Peffley (2001). Racial polarization on criminal justice issues: Sources and political consequences of fairness judgments. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Political Science Association in San Francisco, CA, August 30 to September 2, 2001.
Jackman, Mary R. (1994). The Velvet Glove: Paternalism and Conflict in Gender, Class and Race Relations. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Jacobs, David and Jason Carmichael (2002) The political sociology of the death penalty: A pooled time-series analysis. American Sociological Review, 67: 109–131.Google Scholar
Johnson, Devon (2001) Punitive attitudes on crime: Economic insecurity, racial prejudice, or both? Sociological Focus, 24: 33–54.Google Scholar
Jones, Jeffrey M. (2001). Two-thirds of Americans support the death penalty. Gallup Poll Release March 2, 2001.
Kennedy, Randall (2001). Racial trends in the administration of criminal justice. In Smelser, Wilson, and Mitchell (Eds.), America Becoming: Racial Trends and Their Consequences, Volume II. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Kinder, Donald R. (1998). Opinion and action in the realm of politics. In Gilbert, Fiske, and Lindzey (Eds.), The Handbook of Social Psychology (4th Ed.), pp. 778–867. London: Oxford University Press.
Kinder, Donald R. and Thomas Palfrey (1993). On behalf of an experimental political science. In Palfrey (Ed.), Experimental Foundations of Political Science. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Kinder, Donald R. and Lynn M. Sanders (1996). Divided by Color: Racial Politics and Democratic Ideals. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lock, Shmuel (1999). Crime, Public Opinion, and Civil Liberties: The Tolerant Public. Westport, CT: Praeger.
McCorkle, Richard C. (1993) Research note: Punish and rehabilitate? Public attitudes toward six common crimes. Crime and Delinquency, 39: 240–252.Google Scholar
McGarrell, Edmund F. and Marla Sandys (1996) The misperception of public opinion toward capital punishment: Examining the spuriousness explanation of death penalty support. American Behavioral Scientist, 39: 500–513.Google Scholar
Meares, Tracey and Dan Kahan (1998). Laws and (norms of) order in the inner city. Law and Society Review, 32: 805.Google Scholar
Mendelberg, Tali (2001). The Race Card: Campaign Strategy, Implicit Messages, and the Norm of Equality. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Miller, Jerome G. (1996). Search and Destroy: African-American Males in the Criminal Justice System. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Miller, J.L., Peter H. Rossi, and Jon E. Simpson (1986) Perceptions of justice: Race and gender differences in judgments of appropriate prison sentences. Law and Society Review, 20: 313–334.Google Scholar
Moon, Melissa M. et al. (2000) Putting kids to death: Specifying public support for juvenile capital punishment. Justice Quarterly, 17: 663–684.Google Scholar
Parenti, Christian (1999). Lockdown America: Police and Prison in the Age of Crisis. New York: Verso.
Peek, Charles W., George D. Lowe, and Jon P. Alston. (1981) Race and attitudes toward local police: Another look. Journal of Black Studies, 11: 361–374.Google Scholar
Peffley, Mark, John Hurwitz, and Paul M. Sniderman (1997) Racial stereotypes and whites' political views of blacks in the context of welfare and crime. American Journal of Political Science, 41: 30–60.Google Scholar
Reeves, Keith (1997). Voting Hopes or Fears? New York: Oxford University Press.
Roberts, Julian V. and Loretta J. Stalans (2000). Public Opinion, Crime, and Criminal Justice. Boulder, CO: Westview.
Sachdev, Itesh and R.Y. Bourhis (1991) Power and status differentials in minority and majority group relations. European Journal of Social Psychology, 21: 1–24.Google Scholar
Sandys, Marla and Edmund F. McGarrell (1995) Attitudes toward capital punishment: preference for the penalty or mere acceptance? Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 32: 191–213.Google Scholar
Sarat, A. and N. Vidmar (1976). Public opinion, the death penalty, and the eighth amendment: Testing the Marshall hypothesis. Wisconsin Law Review, 171–206.Google Scholar
Schuman, Howard and Lawrence Bobo (1988) Survey-based experiments on white racial attitudes toward residential segregation. American Journal of Sociology, 94: 273–299.Google Scholar
Schuman, Howard and Stanley Presser (1981). Questions and Answers in Attitude Surveys. New York: Academic Press.
Schuman, Howard, Charlotte Steeh, Lawrence Bobo, and Maria Krysan (1997). Racial Attitudes in America: Trends and Interpretations (Revised Ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Sears, David O., Jim Sidanius, and Lawrence Bobo (2000). Racialized Politics: The Debate About Racism in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Secret, Philip E. and James S. Johnson (1989) Racial differences in attitudes toward crime control. Journal of Criminal Justice, 17: 361–375.Google Scholar
Sidanius, Jim and Felicia Pratto (1999). Social Dominance. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Sidanius, Jim, Pam Singh, John J. Hetts, and Chris Federico (2000). It's not affirmative action, it's the blacks: The continuing relevance of race in American politics. In Sears, Sidanius, and Bobo (Eds.), Racialized Politics: The Debate About Racism in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Smith, Eliot R. (1993). Social identity and social emotions: Toward new conceptualizations of prejudice. In Mackie and Hamilton (Eds.), Affect, Cognition, and Stereotyping: Interactive in Group Perception, pp. 295–315. New York: Academic Press.
Smith, Tom W. (1987) That which we call welfare by any other name would smell sweeter: An analysis of the impact of question wording on response patterns. Public Opinion Quarterly, 51: 75–83.Google Scholar
Smith, Paul E. and Richard O. Hawkins (1973) Victimization, types of citizen–police contacts, and attitudes toward the police. Law and Society Review, 8: 135–152.Google Scholar
Sniderman, Paul M. and Edward Carmines (1997). Reaching Beyond Race. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Tajfel, Henri (1981). Human Groups and Social Categories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Taylor, Terrance J., K.B. Turner, Finn-Aage Esbensen, and L. Thomas Winfree_Jr. (2001) Coppin' an attitude: Attitudinal differences among juveniles toward police. Journal of Criminal Justice, 29: 295–305.Google Scholar
Thernstrom, Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom (1997). America in Black and White. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Tonry, Michael (1995). Malign Neglect: Race, Crime and Punishment in America. New York: Oxford University Press.
Tuch, Steven A. and Ronald Weitzer (1997) Trends: Racial differences in attitudes toward the police. Public Opinion Quarterly, 61: 642–663.Google Scholar
Turk, Austin (1969). Criminality and Legal Order. Chicago: Rand McNally.
Tyler, Tom R. and Robert J. Boeckmann (1997) Three strikes and you are out, but why?: The psychology of public support for punishing rule breakers. Law and Society Review, 31: 237–207.Google Scholar
Tyler, Tom R. and Renee Weber (1982) Support for the death penalty: Instrumental response to crime, or symbolic attitude? Law and Society Review, 17: 21–45.Google Scholar
Valentino, Nicholas A., Vincent L. Hutchings, and Ismail K. White (2002) Cues that matter: How political ads prime racial attitudes during campaigns. American Political Science Review, 96: 75–90.Google Scholar
Wacquant, Loic (2001) Deadly symbiosis: When ghetto and prison meet and mesh. Punishment and Society, 3: 95–134.Google Scholar
Wortley, Scot, John Hagan, and Ross Macmillan (1997) Just des(s)erts? The racial polarization of perceptions of criminal injustice. Law and Society Review, 31: 637–676.Google Scholar
Young, Robert L. (1991) Race, conceptions of crime and justice, and support for the death penalty. Social Psychology Quarterly, 54: 67–75.Google Scholar
Zaller, John R. (1992). The Nature and Origin of Mass Opinion. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.
Zamble, Edward and Kerry Lee Kalm (1990) General and specific measures of public attitudes toward sentencing. Canadian Journal of Behavioral Science, 22: 327–337.Google Scholar