IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/anname/v634y2011i1p16-38.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Thinking about Crime: Race and Lay Accounts of Lawbreaking Behavior

Author

Listed:
  • Victor R. Thompson

    (Rider University)

  • Lawrence D. Bobo

    (Harvard University)

Abstract

Lay or commonsense accounts of the origins of criminal behavior may play a key role in sustaining a strong public appetite for harsh criminal justice policies and undergird large black-white differences in opinion in this domain. Using data from the nationally representative Race, Crime, and Public Opinion project’s 2001 survey, the authors develop an explanatory mode typology for accounts of involvement in criminal behavior. These include both individualistic and structural accounts of behavior in addition to a mixed-mode category. The authors identify key differences in the demographic and sociopolitical bases of the attributional types and find significant race differences in these attributional types. Attributions strongly affect how individuals wish to see public policy respond to the problem of crime and explain a small but significant fraction of the black-white difference in crime policy views.

Suggested Citation

  • Victor R. Thompson & Lawrence D. Bobo, 2011. "Thinking about Crime: Race and Lay Accounts of Lawbreaking Behavior," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 634(1), pages 16-38, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:634:y:2011:i:1:p:16-38
    DOI: 10.1177/0002716210387057
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716210387057
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0002716210387057?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Matthew O. Hunt, 2004. "Race/Ethnicity and Beliefs about Wealth and Poverty," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 85(3), pages 827-853, September.
    2. Ross L. Matsueda & Kevin Drakulich, 2009. "Perceptions of Criminal Injustice, Symbolic Racism, and Racial Politics," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 623(1), pages 163-178, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Filip Gesiarz & Jan-Emmanuel De Neve & Tali Sharot, 2020. "The motivational cost of inequality: Opportunity gaps reduce the willingness to work," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(9), pages 1-18, September.
    2. Şansel Özpinar & Sacit Hadi Akdede, 2022. "Determinants of the Attribution of Poverty in Turkey: An Empirical Analysis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 164(2), pages 949-967, November.
    3. Yul Davids & Amanda Gouws, 2013. "Monitoring Perceptions of the Causes of Poverty in South Africa," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 110(3), pages 1201-1220, February.
    4. Voss, Kim & Silva, Fabiana, 2013. "So Goes the Nation? A preliminary report on how immigration is reshaping the identities of workers in California," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt1js6r75p, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    5. Jan-Emmanuel De Neve & Filip Gesiarz & Tali Sharot, 2019. "The motivational cost of inequality: pay gaps reduce the willingness to pursue rewards," CEP Discussion Papers dp1664, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    6. Jose Antonio R. Clemente & Mary Angeline A. Daganzo & Allan B. I. Bernardo & Cheila Alexis C. Pangan, 2017. "Filipino Adolescents’ Conceptions of Socioeconomic Mobility: a Consensual Qualitative Research," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 10(1), pages 117-140, March.
    7. Halik, Murnizam & Webley, Paul, 2011. "Adolescents' understanding of poverty and the poor in rural Malaysia," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 231-239, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:634:y:2011:i:1:p:16-38. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.