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Comparing expert versus general public rationale for death penalty support and opposition: Is expert perspective on capital punishment consistent with “disciplined retention”?
Punishment & Society ( IF 2.289 ) Pub Date : 2021-07-01 , DOI: 10.1177/14624745211029370
Timothy Griffin 1
Affiliation  

The author compared American criminologists’ stated reasons for death penalty support or opposition with those of the general public as reported by Gallup pollsters. While experts were overwhelmingly more likely to oppose capital punishment, the rationale for opposition or support were largely comparable for both groups, albeit with some potentially informative differences. As is the case with the general public, the most common reasons for experts' opposition are moral beliefs, concerns about system errors, and the unfair application of the death penalty. Similarly, among the small minority of experts who expressed (often qualified) support for the death penalty, the favored rationale is simple retributive justice—exactly as is the case with the general public. The results show that, not only is opposition to the death penalty among experts not absolute, but the underlying rationale of expert dissenters is arguably a partial bridge to greater public-expert symbiosis on this highly contentious and divisive issue. The radical “newsmaking criminology” contribution of these findings and their ramifications is that the entirety of expert perspective is arguably as consistent with disciplined retention of the death penalty as it is with strict abolition. Future research could reveal even more expert sympathy for retributive thinking, and thus greater affinity with public views, than might be assumed.



中文翻译:

比较专家与公众支持和反对死刑的理由:专家对死刑的看法是否与“纪律处分”一致?

作者将美国犯罪学家所陈述的支持或反对死刑的理由与盖洛普民意调查机构报告的公众理由进行了比较。虽然专家们压倒性地反对死刑的可能性更大,但反对或支持的理由对两组来说在很大程度上是可比的,尽管存在一些潜在的信息差异。与一般民众一样,专家反对的最常见原因是道德信仰、对制度错误的担忧以及对死刑的不公平适用。同样,在表示(通常有资格)支持死刑的少数专家中,赞成的理由是简单的报复性正义——和普通大众一样。结果表明,不仅专家反对死刑不是绝对的,而且专家持不同意见者的基本原理可以说是在这个极具争议和分裂的问题上实现更大公共专家共生的部分桥梁。这些调查结果的激进“新闻犯罪学”贡献及其后果是,专家的整体观点可以说与严格废除死刑一样符合纪律性保留死刑。未来的研究可能会揭示出更多的专家对报复性思维的同情,从而与公众观点产生更大的亲和力,这比想象的要多。

更新日期:2021-07-01
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