Criminological Explanations, Race, and Biological Attributions of Crime as Predictors of Philadelphia Area Residents’ Support for Criminal Justice Policies

This study used telephone surveys from 350 randomly sampled Philadelphians to examine whether attributing crime to individual and environmental causes predicted support for punitive and progressive policies, respectively. This study also investigated whether Blacks and Whites differed in their preferred crime responses, and whether race interacted with crime attributions to predict preferred policies. Finally, this study explored whether...