“Good Ol' Boys” and the Chair: Death Penalty Attitudes of Policy Makers in Tennessee

This report is a summary of a survey of Tennessee chief prosecutors (district attorneys general), chief public defenders, and state legislators concerning their attitudes toward capital punishment. Global approval was compared with (1) approval when offered the options of life without parole and (2)...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Crime and delinquency 1998-04, Vol.44 (2), p.245-256
Main Author: Whitehead, John T.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attitudes
Attorneys
Capital Punishment
Crime
Criminal justice
Criminal Justice Policy
Criminal justice professionals
Imprisonment
Judicial Decisions
Judiciary
Lawyers
Legislators
Parole
Policy making
Political aspects
Polls & surveys
Prosecutors
Public defenders
Public officials
Public prosecutors
Sentencing
Social Attitudes
Social Support
Tennessee
U.S.A
United States
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This report is a summary of a survey of Tennessee chief prosecutors (district attorneys general), chief public defenders, and state legislators concerning their attitudes toward capital punishment. Global approval was compared with (1) approval when offered the options of life without parole and (2) life without parole and restitution to the victim's family. Additional items probed approval of capital punishment for specific subpopulations: juvenile, mentally ill, and mentally retarded offenders. Consistent with previous research, support for the death penalty declined when respondents were given the option of life without parole. A concluding note is offered calling for more complete research on the issue.
ISSN:0011-1287
1552-387X
DOI:10.1177/0011128798044002004