Anxious or Angry: Race, Affect, and Support for Strategies to Address Crime

• In Event: Attitudes About Punishment

Abstract

While criminologists have long been interested in fear of crime, recent research has suggested we take better notice of anger (Farrall 2004; Johnson 2009; Hartnagel and Templeton 2012). The current research replicates and extends this work. Specifically, different affective reactions to crime may be rooted in distinct attributional frames about the causes of crime as well as beliefs about differential racial involvement in crime. In turn, anger and anxiety may be associated with support for different kinds of policy solutions to the problem of crime. The results reveal anger to be a more common reaction to the prospect of victimization than anxiety, and while the two share some common sources and consequences, important distinctions exist. Anger, but not anxiety, is more common among those who believe that blacks are disproportionately violent and those who believe that racial inequalities are driven by dispositional characteristics rather than historical and contemporary discrimination. Similarly anger, but not anxiety, is associated with support for increasing spending on law enforcement and to address crime problems. Less punitive solutions do not share this pattern. Important differences also emerge in attitudes toward gun control. Implications for research on affective reactions to crime and for crime-relevant policies are discussed.

Authors

• Kevin Drakulich, Northeastern University

• Andrew J. Baranauskas, Northeastern University