Marc Gertz

The Construct Validity and Refinement of Process-Based Policing Measures

Prior tests of Tylers process-based model of policing have left basic measurement questions unanswered. With a sample of 432 adults from a nationwide telephone survey conducted in spring 2005, factor-analytic procedures were used to develop more valid scales and to test process-based model hypotheses. Regression analyses confirmed that procedural justice judgments affect police legitimacy, which in turn influence both cooperation with police and compliance with the law. When legitimacy was disaggregated, trust in the police predicted both of the outcomes of interest. Obligation to obey, however, was not significantly associated with either compliance or cooperation. Finally, distributive fairness appeared to be as salient as legitimacy in facilitating participant cooperation.

Crime, news and fear of crime : Toward an identification of audience effects

Communication studies increasingly recognize the audiences critical role in receiving and interpreting media messages. Research into audience attributes that distinguish “media effects,” on the fear of crime (FEAR) has been limited—particularly as it relates to the reception of news. This study is based on a survey of 2,092 adults in Tallahassee, Florida at the height of a media driven “panic” about violent crime. Controlling for age, gender, race, victim experience and other perceptions of crime, the frequency of watching television news and listening to news on the radio is significantly related to FEAR. Reading newspapers and newsmagazines and recall of detail concerning specific highly publicized violent crimes are unrelated to FEAR. When audiences are disaggregated by gender, race, and a series of third attributes, television news consumption is significantly related to FEAR only for white females between the ages of thirty and fifty-four. This finding holds regardless of victim experience, income or perceived safety. Several explanations derived from previous research are applied to this finding. Both “resonance” and “substitution” have possible explanatory relevance, but the “affinity” of audience members with victims most often seen on television news may best account for the concentration of “media effects” among white women.

Race and attitudes toward the police: Assessing the effects of watching “reality” police programs

Compared with Whites, African Americans generally have less positive attitudes toward the police (ATP) and this is most often attributed to the differential nature of citizen-police interaction experienced by Blacks and Whites. It has been suggested that the media play an important socializing role, in the form of “vicarious” police contacts, in generating ATP. To assess this possibility, this research examined the relationship between ATP and watching television news as well as “reality” crime programming, such as COPS and Americas Most Wanted. Data used in these analyses were taken from a 1996 survey of 1,492 adults residing in a southeastern metropolitan area. When other factors influencing ATP were controlled for in ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions, the frequency of watching news was positively related to ATP for Blacks and Whites alike, but watching “reality” crime programming improved ATP only for Whites, males, and those with no college experience. “Reality” crime programming increased the racial divide in ATP.

Economic Insecurity, Blame, and Punitive Attitudes

This study examines the relationship between punitive attitudes toward criminals, two measures of economic insecurity and a measure of blame for stagnating incomes that targets welfare, affirmative action, and immigration. In effect, we are testing whether punitiveness toward criminals is part of a general constellation of resentment toward what Gans (1995) has termed the “undeserving poor” and that Garland (2001) has described as the “politics of reaction.” Survey data involving 1,476 adults are assessed using OLS regression. Results indicate that blame of welfare, affirmative action, and immigration is the strongest predictor of punitiveness. Economic insecurity has variable input to punitive attitudes that depends on the measure used and the sex and race of respondents. Some evidence of an “angry White male” phenomenon is also provided by the results.

Sex Crimes, Children, and Pornography Public Views and Public Policy

“Get tough” approaches for responding to sex crimes have proliferated during the past decade. Child pornography in particular has garnered attention in recent years. Policy makers increasingly have emphasized incarceration as a response to such crime, including accessing child pornography. Juxtaposed against such efforts is a dearth of knowledge about “get tough” policies for responding to sex crimes, particularly those targeting children, and how most appropriately to respond to such crimes. The authors examine data from a national telephone survey of Americans to explore views toward sex crimes, with a special emphasis on crimes against children. The findings indicate the public supports tough responses to child sex crimes, but they also support treatment of sex offenders. Also, despite views that incarceration is an appropriate response to possessing child pornography, several social and demographic cleavages in such support exist. The authors discuss these findings and their implications for policy and research.

Carrying Guns for Protection: Results from the National Self-Defense Survey

The article reviews research on gun carrying and reports new findings from the National Self-Defense Survey on the prevalence, incidence, and patterns of adult gun carrying for protection. About 8.8 percent of adults carried guns in the preceding year, 3.7 percent carried guns on their person, and 6.5 percent carried guns in a vehicle. Within a given year, about 16.8 million U.S. adults carry a gun, 7.1 million who carry do so on the person and 12.4 million do so in a vehicle. On an average day, 2.7 million U.S. adults carry a gun for protection on their person and 5.0 million carry one in a vehicle. Less than one in a thousand instances of gun carrying involves a violent gun crime. Carrying was more common among males, Blacks, people in the South and West, people with a job requiring a gun, those who know someone who was recently the victim of a crime, believe that crime is above average in their neighborhood, have been a robbery victim, or believe people must depend on themselves for protection.

The Social Correlates of Punitiveness Toward Criminals: A Comparison of the Czech Republic and Florida

The United States and the Czech Republic have become more punitive in their responses to criminal behavior. Criminal justice policy may reflect popular opinion to some degree. Using survey data collected in Florida in 1997 and in the Czech Republic in 1998, we identify significant predictors of punitive attitudes for individual citizens of both countries. Our results show that while it is difficult to compare the two countries directly, we do find some common predictors of punitiveness. OLS regression analysis indicates that punitive attitudes for both countries are shaped by fear of crime generally, as well as by more crime-specific concerns. Further, our study finds that antipathy toward those perceived as “other” is the strongest predictor of punitiveness in the Czech Republic. The same underlying process may be at work in Florida where conservatism is a consistent predictor of punitive attitudes.

Female Inmates’ Procedural Justice Perceptions of the Police and Courts Is There a Spill-Over of Police Effects?

Serious offenders, especially incarcerated individuals, are rarely asked to judge the procedural justice of the police and courts. While serious offenders are rarely studied, even more uncommon are assessments of serious female offenders. In addition, despite a fair amount of research on perceptions of the procedural justice of the police and courts, little research has examined the spill-over of police effects onto the perceptions of the courts. This paper aims to bridge these gaps, by examining a sample of female inmates’ perceptions of the police and courts, and the spill-over of perceptions of the police onto perceptions of the courts. Results indicate that female offenders’ procedural justice perceptions are significantly influenced by their perceived honesty of police officers and the judge, and their perceived opportunity to have their voice heard in police and court encounters. There also appears to be a significant spill-over of police effects onto perceptions about the courts.

The Influence of Gender on the Placement of Children with Gay or Lesbian Adoptive Parents

Abstract This study examines the opinions of men and women from a random phone sample of super voters (those persons voting in the last three out of four possible elections) in Florida (N = 413) toward gay men and/or lesbians as adoptive parents. The survey gathered information on whether the respondents would place boys or girls available for adoption with gay men or lesbians. Controlling for various demographic variables, bivariate logistic regressions were performed for each possible parent/child combination. Several variables were consistently significant across the models tested, explaining from 22 to 29% of the variance. These included race/ethnicity, religious identification, respondents gender, and political ideology. Implications of this study for policy-makers and child welfare practitioners are posited.

Variables influencing sentencing severity: Intercourt differences in Connecticut

Studies of criminal-court dispositions have traditionally aggregated courts along political and geographic boundaries. This article suggests that courts should be analyzed individually, even within the same jurisdiction, as a means of increasing the explanatory capacity of the variables involved. Further, it is contended that intercourt differences are a result of organizational influences operating within each court.