Review of University Students' Attitudes on Crime and Justice

This literature review examines university students' attitudes towards crime and justice, focusing on their punitive behaviors and the factors influencing these attitudes. The review explores the relationship between students and the criminal justice system, considering the impact of socio-demographic factors, ideology, and media exposure. It investigates whether university students are more punitive than the general population and analyzes demographic differences in their views on crime and punishment. The paper also discusses the implications of these attitudes for intervention strategies, suggesting targets for intervention based on the functions of attitude, such as the fear of crime and value-expressive motivations. The review highlights the importance of understanding these dynamics to design effective strategies for crime prevention and justice.

Running head: ATTITUDE TOWARDS CRIME AND JUSTICE
Attitude towards Crime and Justice
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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ATTITUDE TOWARDS CRIME AND JUSTICE
Executive Summary
The literature review is on the current programs that are based on the attitude of the
university students on crime and justice. In this regard, the literature review focuses on the
examination of the nature along with the determinants of the attitudes of the students towards
crime and justice.
The aim and purpose of the literature review is to create emphasis on the punitive behavior of
the students on crime and justice. With the help of the available research, the demographic
differences have to be analyzed, as well as reviewed towards the crime and justice.
Therefore, it can be concluded that the university students are punitive in nature in
comparison to the elderly people in the society. The implications of the literature in terms of
the intervention strategies are discussed and the paper suggested interesting targets for
the intervention as well.

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ATTITUDE TOWARDS CRIME AND JUSTICE
Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................3
Attitude towards crime and justice: Are University students Punitive?........................3
Socio-Demographic Attitudes and Factors to Crime and Punishment...........................4
Ideology and Attitudes to Punishment and crime..........................................................4
Media and attitude of university students towards crime and justice............................5
Changing Attitudes towards crime and justice...............................................................5
Conclusion......................................................................................................................6
References......................................................................................................................8

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ATTITUDE TOWARDS CRIME AND JUSTICE
Introduction
The literature review is on the legal systems that do not function properly without
proper support from university students (Bateman, 2015). The criminal justice structure is
important in the perceptions of them, as there is certain interdependency between the students
as well as the criminal justice structure. It is based on the participation of the university
students that includes willingness of the public in reporting crimes and participation of
customers in the court process as well (Belknap, 2014). Braga, Papachristos & Hureau
(2014), notes when there is dissatisfaction among the public regarding the performance of
justice system and it can cause less willingness among customers to comply with various
laws.
The aim and purpose is to analyze importance of attitude of publics towards
punishment and crime. The research is essential as to analyze changes in attitude of public in
societal level. Proper review is required as to provide dynamics to the attitude of the public
towards the crime and justice as to analyze the future intervention programs.
The structure will be based on the different arguments that are been conducted in
order to understand the different views of the public towards punishment and crime. The
intervention strategies has to be implemented in such a manner wherein proper guidance can
be provided to the criminals and punishments and justice are given accordingly as well.
Attitude towards crime and justice: Are University students Punitive?
Tonry (2015) reviewed the findings that the system related to criminal justice has to
be taken into account as the university students may not be punitive in nature towards the
criminals. For instance- Yates (2016) examined that there was less support for the sentences
that are prison based than it was expected in nature. Furthermore, the results from the British

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Crime Survey suggested that university students do not support construction of more prisons
rather they support alternatives to imprisonment such as sentences that are community based
(Belknap, 2014). However, on the other hand Braga, Papachristos & Hureau (2015) do not
report same findings about the construction of imprisonments.
The other important question is the difference in the opinions of university students
on the kinds of criminal offences. There can be huge possibility that students agree with
punitive violent rather than the non-violent offences (Tonry, 2015). As a result, a survey was
conducted as to understand the aspect of the individuals on criminal justice system.
Socio-Demographic Attitudes and Factors to Crime and Punishment
There are different studies that have been examined that included the socio-
demographic class towards the punishment (Muncie, 2014). The findings also replicated that
the university students were punitive oriented than the older respondents. Monahan,
Steinberg & Piquero (2015) also examined about the differences in the opinions of male and
female university students. However, Tankebe (2015) found there were no gender differences
that support the interventions based on community as well as other opportunities related to
employment. From the findings, it cannot be understood about the gender roles towards
punishment attitudes as there are differences in the gender by some studies, on the other hand
there is no gender discrimination as well.
Ideology and Attitudes to Punishment and crime
The ideological belief of the university students has pervasive impact on the social
stimuli. Muncie (2014) conducted an important study wherein proper examination of the
beliefs helped in understanding the influenced attitude towards justice and crime. The results
that were generated helped in understanding the beliefs of the students towards the beliefs as

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ATTITUDE TOWARDS CRIME AND JUSTICE
well as predicted crimes and punishment. According to Reisig & Bain (2016), victimization
has no such effect on the attitudes that are punitive in nature.
Media and attitude of university students towards crime and justice
With different members, especially the university students have easy access to the
television and newspaper. There has been ample evidence that the conviction of the public is
that the justice system is not tough enough that cannot help in development of strategies to
replicate such findings.
Changing Attitudes towards crime and justice
According to Monahan, Steinberg & Piquero (2015), the relationship between the
university students along with the media is complex in nature. In terms of the readership of
newspaper, fear from crime results from the sensational stories that are presented in the local
newspaper rather than in national newspaper (Miech et al., 2015). In summary, it can be
concluded that the findings are correlational in nature. The different factors are responsible in
designing the attitude of the punishments. The critical question arises wherein the attitudes
that are changing are considerable in nature. The changing attitudes are essential in nature, as
this will help in creating evidences that are influencing the behavior of the individuals.
Mandracchia, Shaw & Morgan (2013), criticism stimulated deal of research on the
link related to the attitude and behavior of the university students. The researchers argued that
in measuring the global attitudes, it resulted in the weakening of relationship between
behavior and attitude. Therefore, specific measures need to be adopted rather than the global
measures and it has to be employed as well. In the present paper, there has been an argument
that has been raised wherein discrepancies are articulated as to analyze the findings related to
the social science and opinion polls.

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ATTITUDE TOWARDS CRIME AND JUSTICE
As noted, there are different kinds of students in the university holds different views
on the designing of change in attitude towards the system of criminal justice (Goldson &
Muncie, 2015). Therefore, the research work on the change in the attitude towards the crime
and justice is critical in nature, as it would help in providing measurement of baseline upon
which the intervention strategies are based. Proper strategies has to be implemented by the
judicial in order to reduce the level of crime and there can be justice provided to the
individuals who are getting punitive punishments.
In order to design the intervention strategies, proper nature of attitudes along with the
function has to be determined properly (Crawford & Evans, 2016). The examples of
functions of attitude provided by Eck & Weisburd (2015) are relevant to the paper. Firstly,
the attitudes will serve as an instrumental function and such kind of attitudes help in assisting
the individuals in navigating the social environment with the help of maximizing the rewards
as well as avoiding negative consequences. A proper example of instrumental attitude
towards crime and justice is the university students who hold punitive attitudes are due to fear
of the crime. These kinds of individuals are motivated to avoid negative consequences in the
environment.
Therefore, in order to design interventions related to attitude change, proper functions
related to the attitude has to be considered by the university students. For instance- A change
in attitude helps in focusing on the alleviating the fear of crime and that may not create
desired impact on the university students who hold kind of attitudes for the reasons that are
value expressive. The university students need to adopt proper idea towards the crime and
justice, as this will help in providing justice towards the change in attitude along with the
functions of the research that cannot be over emphasized as well.

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Conclusion
Therefore, it can be inferred that the present paper helped in reviewing the attitude of
the university students towards crime and justice. With the help of concerning question on the
attitude of the students that are favorable in nature to the disposal punitive in nature of the
offenders, there were majority of researchers who felt this is not the case all the time.
However, the researcher identified some important demographic differences in the attitude of
the students towards crime and justice. It is essential to be noted that influence on the
demographics have huge influence on the crime and justice that is not direct in nature.
For instance- The university students supports the punitive criminal justice as
compared to the elderly individuals. The research also reviewed interesting strategies on the
intervention strategies wherein the university students adopted punitive strategies towards the
offenders. Accordingly, proper understanding on the dynamics that are psychological in
nature towards crime and justice is necessary before the strategies of intervention are
designed.

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References
Bateman, T. (2015). Trends in detected youth crime and contemporary state responses. Sage.
Belknap, J. (2014). The invisible woman: Gender, crime, and justice. Nelson Education.
Braga, A. A., Papachristos, A. V., & Hureau, D. M. (2014). The effects of hot spots policing
on crime: An updated systematic review and meta-analysis. Justice Quarterly, 31(4),
633-663.
Crawford, T. A. M., & Evans, K. (2016). Crime prevention and community safety.
Eck, J. E., & Weisburd, D. L. (2015). Crime places in crime theory.
Goldson, B., & Muncie, J. (Eds.). (2015). Youth crime and justice. Sage.
Mandracchia, J. T., Shaw, L. B., & Morgan, R. D. (2013). What’s with the attitude?
Changing attitudes about criminal justice issues. Criminal Justice and
Behavior, 40(1), 95-113.
Miech, R. A., Johnston, L., O’Malley, P. M., Bachman, J. G., Schulenberg, J., & Patrick, M.
E. (2015). Trends in use of marijuana and attitudes toward marijuana among youth
before and after decriminalization: The case of California 2007–2013. International
Journal of Drug Policy, 26(4), 336-344.
Monahan, K., Steinberg, L., & Piquero, A. R. (2015). Juvenile justice policy and practice: A
developmental perspective. Crime and justice, 44(1), 577-619.
Muncie, J. (2014). Youth and crime. Sage.

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Reisig, M. D., & Bain, S. N. (2016). University legitimacy and student compliance with
academic dishonesty codes: A partial test of the process-based model of self-
regulation. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 43(1), 83-101.
Tankebe, J. (2013). Viewing things differently: The dimensions of public perceptions of
police legitimacy. Criminology, 51(1), 103-135.
Tonry, M. (Ed.). (2015). Crime and Justice, Volume 44: A Review of Research(Vol. 44).
University of Chicago Press.
Yates, J. (2016). ‘Making a Raise’and ‘Dusting the Feds’: Contextualising Constructions of
Risk and Youth Crime. In Communicating Risk (pp. 103-118). Palgrave Macmillan
UK.