Joseph E. Scott

Public support for correctional treatment: the tenacity of rehabilitative ideology

For the past decade or so, scholars have joined with politicians in suggesting that citizens manifest little support for correctional treatment. Based on a 1986 survey of Cincinnati and Columbus residents, we present data that question this broad assumption. The data indicate that rehabilitation receives considerable support, though this is most pronounced for certain offenders and for certain treatment modalities. In general, the study reinforces the finding of a growing body of revisionist research that the public retains faith in rehabilitation as a legitimate goal of the correctional process.

The Death Penalty for Juveniles: An Assessment of Public Support

The United States is one of the few nations that permits the execution of offenders for murders committed while under the age of 18. The juvenile death penalty has received considerable media and public attention both nationally and internationally. Yet despite the extensive literature on public attitudes toward the death penalty, little research exists on public attitudes toward the juvenile death penalty. This article examines attitudes toward this penalty, using data collected in a telephone survey of two midwestern cities. A substantial majority of those surveyed opposed the death penalty for juveniles above the age of 14 convicted of murder. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Violence and sexual violence in pornography : is it really increasing ?

Literature and research on the question of the increasingly violent nature of pornography is reviewed. In addition, the paper reports the findings of a content analysis of all cartoons and pictures in Hustler Magazine from 1974 through 1987. Results indicate that sexually violent cartoons and/or pictorials constitute a relatively small proportion of the total cartoons and pictorials. Moreover, no monotonic increase was found in such depictions over the 14-year period examined. In fact, a relatively small and constant proportion of violent and/or sexually violent depictions over this period is reported. These findings are examined in relation to previous research and societal concern about alleged increases in violent pornography as an explanation for increases in rape rates.

Prison Crowding: Public Attitudes Toward Strategies of Population Control:

This article examines public attitudes toward policies to reduce prison crowding. Public attitudes were assessed through telephone surveys of adult residents of two major midwestern cities: Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio. Substantial public support for community-based corrections and incentive good time was found. Prison construction received only moderate support while high levels of public disapproval were found for shortening sentences and increasing parole board authority. Probit regression analysis of the relationship between respondent characteristics and support for policies to reduce prison crowding revealed that attitudinal variables were more consistently related to public opinion than were demographic variables. The broader issue of the relationship between public attitudes and prison policy is also raised and discussed within the context of this research.

Violence in Playboy magazine: a longitudinal analysis.

This paper analyzes the amount of violence in cartoons and pictorials from January 1954, through December 1983 in Playboy magazine. Inasmuch as the Attorney Generals Commission on Pornography and Obscenity has focused upon magazines such as Playboy as potentially harmful to society because of the violence merged with sex, such an analysis is appropriate at this time. Each cartoon and pictorial for each issue of Playboy for the 30-year-period was examined for violent depictions. The average number of violent cartoons for the 30-year-period was 6.92/year or 0.58/issue. The average number of violent pictorials was less with an average of 1.89/year or 0.16/issue. The ratio of violent cartoons or pictorials to the total number of cartoons or pictorials was small. The ratio of violent cartoons to all cartoons was 25.2/1000 and for violent pictorials to all pictorials it was 8.6/1000. Moreover, the ratio of violent cartoons to total pages was 2.86/1000 and for violent pictorials 0.78/1000 pages. Although the overall number and ratio of violent cartoons and pictorials in Playboy over the 30-year-period examined was rare, a major question addressed was whether the amount of violence was increasing. Rather than a linear relation, a curvilinear relationship was observed with the amount of violence on the decrease in recent years. Although the effects of violence in sexual material is still being debated, those who argue for greater censorship of magazines such as Playboy because of its depictions of violence need a new rationale to justify their position.

Obscenity and the Law Is it Possible for a Jury to Apply Contemporary Community Standards in Determining Obscenity

This paper examines whether a random sample of adults can apply local contemporary community standards regarding the acceptability of explicit sexual material. Inasmuch as the legal test employed in the U.S. for determining obscenity requires a jury to apply such standards, the research examines the practicality of such an approach. The analysis indicates that the best predictor of what an individual will perceive the community standards to be is the individuals own standards concerning sexual material. The implications of these findings are examined from both a legal and social science perspective. In addition, the consequences of not providing jurors information concerning local standards are discussed.

The Perceived Seriousness of Crime in the Middle East

This paper builds on previous work in examining the seriousness of criminal acts. The research was conducted to determine the seriousness of several criminal acts in the Middle East with the goal to determine whether certain characteristics of the respondents would be associated with different perceptions as to the seriousness of different types of crimes. The findings of this study differ significantly from previous research in finding Moral Crimes to be perceived as extremely serious, in fact, about as serious as violent acts. However, the rank order of violent, property and white collar crimes, when the moral crimes are eliminated, are consistently with previous research. Similar to previous research, no difference was found in the overall ranking of crimes by any of the subgroups analyzed. It was found that religiosity (Islamic Fundamentalism) was the best predictor of a respondents overall perception as to the seriousness of crime.

The Revitalization of Islamic Penal Law: An Examination of Its Opponents

There is an increasing interest today in reestablishing Islamic Penal Law in most Middle East countries. The majority of the population apparently favors this change. There are, however, a minority opposed to such changes. This paper examines how those opposed to reinstituting Islamic Penal Law differ from others based on data gathered from 600 respondents in Kuwait. The findings indicate that those most opposed to such a change are the upper or upper middle class. They apparently are opposed not only to reestablishing Islamic Penal Law but also are less orthodox Muslems. They have had considerable more contact with the Western world but are a small but important minority in their society.

Parental Values: An Inquiry into Occupational Setting.

The Miller and Swanson thesis that families classified as entrepreneurial tend to emphasize self-control for their children and those classified as bureaucratic tend to emphasize submission to external control was empirically tested in this study. No support was found for this thesis. Additional support for the use of occupation, education and income in explaining the variation in parental values is presented.

Sex References in the Mass Media

Abstract This study investigates the mass medias coverage of sexual topics during the years 1950, 1960, and 1970. An examination is made of the quantity of references to sex, the percentage of liberal references, and the coverage of specific sexual activities. It is ascertained that specific references to extramarital sex and noncoital sex decreased from 1950 to 1970. References both to sex relations leading to pregnancy and to sexual deviance have doubled in the number and percentage of total sexual references in this same period. The possible effects of the activities of special interest groups in altering the mass medias coverage of sexual activities is also taken into consideration.