TY - JOUR PY - 2012// TI - Public attitudes toward juveniles who commit crimes the relationship between assessments of adolescent development and attitudes toward severity of punishment JO - Crime and delinquency A1 - Allen, Terrence T. A1 - Trzcinski, Eileen A1 - Kubiak, Sheryl Pimlott SP - 78 EP - 102 VL - 58 IS - 1 N2 - In this article, the authors used a statewide survey to investigate the extent to which beliefs regarding the age at which youth reach maturity, the role of peer influences, and other factors, such as abuse during childhood, are associated with measures of how harshly juveniles should be treated by the justice system. The results of this study provide strong support for the hypothesis that assessments of adolescent development are important predictors of attitudes about how juveniles should be treated in the justice system. In all cases, variables measuring attitudes surrounding adolescent development explained substantially more of the variance in attitudes toward punishment than did demographic and socioeconomic variables.

Language: en

LA - en SN - 0011-1287 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0011128711420104 ID - ref1 ER -