Ian Brunton-Smith

Science knowledge and attitudes across cultures: a meta-analysis

The correlation between knowledge and attitudes has been the source of controversy in research on the public understanding of science (PUS). Although many studies, both quantitative and qualitative, have examined this issue, the results are at best diverse and at worst contradictory. In this paper, we review the evidence on the relationship between public attitudes and public knowledge about science across 40 countries using a meta-analytic approach. We fit multilevel models to data from 193 nationally representative surveys on PUS carried out since 1989. We find a small positive correlation between general attitudes towards science and general knowledge of scientific facts, after controlling for a range of possible confounding variables. This general relationship varies little across cultures but more substantially between different domains of science and technology. Our results suggest that PUS research needs to focus on understanding the mechanisms that underlie the clear association that exists between knowledge and attitudes about science.

Does Ethnic Diversity Erode Trust? Putnam’s ‘Hunkering Down’ Thesis Reconsidered

We use a multi-level modelling approach to estimate the effect of ethnic diversity on measures of generalized and strategic trust using data from a new survey in Britain with a sample size approaching 25,000 individuals. In addition to the ethnic diversity of neighbourhoods, we incorporate a range of indicators of the socio-economic characteristics of individuals and the areas in which they live. Our results show no effect of ethnic diversity on generalized trust. There is a statistically significant association between diversity and a measure of strategic trust, but in substantive terms, the effect is trivial and dwarfed by the effects of economic deprivation and the social connectedness of individuals.

Ethnic diversity, segregation, and the social cohesion of neighbourhoods in London

The question of whether and how ethnic diversity affects the social cohesion of communities has become an increasingly prominent and contested topic of academic and political debate. In this paper we focus on a single city: London. As possibly the most ethnically diverse conurbation on the planet, London serves as a particularly suitable test-bed for theories about the effects of ethnic heterogeneity on prosocial attitudes. We find neighbourhood ethnic diversity in London to be positively related to the perceived social cohesion of neighbourhood residents, once the level of economic deprivation is accounted for. Ethnic segregation within neighbourhoods, on the other hand, is associated with lower levels of perceived social cohesion. Both effects are strongly moderated by the age of individual residents: diversity has a positive effect on social cohesion for young people but this effect dissipates in older age groups; the reverse pattern is found for ethnic segregation.

Public attitudes to genomic science: an experiment in information provision

We use an experimental panel study design to investigate the effect of providing “value-neutral” information about genomic science in the form of a short film to a random sample of the British public. We find little evidence of attitude change as a function of information provision. However, our results show that information provision significantly increased dropout from the study amongst less educated respondents. Our findings have implications both for our understanding of the knowledge—attitude relationship in public opinion toward genomic science and for science communication more generally.

Prison Legitimacy and Procedural Fairness: A Multilevel Examination of Prisoners in England and Wales

The procedural justice model has been widely used as an explanation for understanding legitimacy and compliance with the law, particularly within the context of policing. Central to this model is the importance of procedural fairness—in which the treatment of citizens and offenders by criminal justice agents can play a key role in building legitimacy and influencing compliance with legal rules and values. This paper examines the relationship between procedural fairness and legitimacy within the context of corrections. Drawing on data from a longitudinal survey of more than 3,000 prisoners across England and Wales, we identify an important link between procedural fairness and prisoner perceptions of legitimacy. We further examine variations in legitimacy in terms of individual prisoner characteristics, conditions within prison, as well as differences between prisons.

Urban Fear and its Roots in Place

Where one lives seems to shape one’s worry about crime. Structural characteristics of neighbourhoods, visual signs of disorder and recorded crime have all been shown to have a direct and independent effect on individual levels of fear of crime. But when individuals evaluate their personal risk of crime, do they draw on the wider social and physical environment that extends beyond their own neighbourhood’s boundaries? In short, does the wider urban fabric matter? In this chapter, we link individual survey data (from a national probability sample of individuals resident in urban areas of England and Wales) to independent measures of neighbourhood demographic characteristics, visual signs of disorder and reported crime. Testing the so-called spatial autocorrelation, our findings indicate geographical spillover effects. Living near an area with high crime rate and visible signs of low-level disorder is associated with a higher probability of worry about crime, even holding constant one’s immediate neighbourhood context. People’s conceptions of their neighbourhood may be more complex than standard administrative boundaries, with people’s routine activities often taking them further than their own immediate locality. Equally, individuals may also assume that the crime and disorder that occurs next door can intrude on their own doorstep.

The Role of Neighbourhoods in Shaping Crime and Perceptions of Crime

Neighbourhood context plays an important role in the development of the perceptions of crime. To understand how neighbourhood contexts can influence crime, the authors present four major theories through which neighbourhood content is mediated to individual perceptions: social disorganisation, subcultural diversity, low level disorder and, defensible space. The authors focus on the need to improve the estimation of neighbourhood effects with regard to individual perceptions of crime. Reviewing current literature, they highlight a common set of neighbourhood effects problems including the issue of relating multiple levels in a single model, the problem of selection bias, and the identification of adequate neighbourhood units for analysis. In the analysis, UK administrative geography is adopted as a means to represent the neighbourhood, and a multilevel model is fitted. The final part of the chapter deals with the policies that have been pursued to ameliorate neighbourhood problems associated with crime. The focus of the policy discussion is UK centred, and the development of neighbourhood policing teams is discussed. In conclusion, the authors highlight the complexity that remains in developing understanding of neighbourhood perceptions of crime. This is largely a result of the multiple influencing factors that are related to individual perceptions of crime but rarely included explicitly in the models that seek to report the links between people and the places that they live.

Addressing the carbon-crime blind spot : a carbon footprint approach

Governments estimate the social and economic impacts of crime, but its environmental impact is largely unacknowledged. Our study addresses this by estimating the carbon footprint of crime in England and Wales and identifies the largest sources of emissions. By applying environmentally extended input-output analysis–derived carbon emission factors to the monetized costs of crime, we estimate that crime committed in 2011 in England and Wales gave rise to over 4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents. Burglary resulted in the largest proportion of the total footprint (30%), because of the carbon associated with replacing stolen/damaged goods. Emissions arising from criminal justice system services also accounted for a large proportion (21% of all offenses; 49% of police recorded offenses). Focus on these offenses and the carbon efficiency of these services may help reduce the overall emissions that result from crime. However, cutting crime does not automatically result in a net reduction in carbon, given that we need to take account of potential rebound effects. As an example, we consider the impact of reducing domestic burglary by 5%. Calculating this is inherently uncertain given that it depends on assumptions concerning how money would be spent in the absence of crime. We find the most likely rebound effect (our medium estimate) is an increase in emissions of 2%. Despite this uncertainty concerning carbon savings, our study goes some way toward informing policy makers of the scale of the environmental consequences of crime and thus enables it to be taken into account in policy appraisals.

Young people and the formation of attitudes towards the police

Much is now known about public trust and confidence in the police, especially regarding the important role of procedural justice in police–citizen engagements. However, less is known about perceptions of the police amongst young people and how their views are formed. We use survey data from more than 1500 young people aged 10–15 years whose parents were also interviewed in the Crime Survey for England and Wales (2010–12) to explore the extent that children’s views of the police correspond with those of their parents. We find a strong and consistent link between the views of children and their parents – a relationship moderated by perceptions of police visibility, experience of victimization and the age of the child.

The Effect of Penal Legitimacy on Prisoners’ Postrelease Desistance

Studies of procedural justice and legitimacy have shown that where legal actors use formal rules in ways that are perceived to be fair and consistent by those policed, greater compliance with the law can be achieved. A number of studies have assessed how legitimacy and compliance are related using general population samples, but few have tested these links among offending groups. Drawing on data from a longitudinal survey of prisoners across England and Wales, we find that prisoners who perceive their experience of prison as legitimate are more likely to believe that they will desist from crime. However, despite the existence of desistance beliefs, these do not translate into similar effects of legitimacy on proven reconviction rates a year post release.