Seltzer R, McCormick J P
Department of Political Science, Howard University, Washington, D. C.
Violence Vict. 1987 Summer;2(2):99-114.
A 1983 telephone survey of 610 respondents in two Maryland counties found that the general disposition of the respondents toward the criminal justice system was a better predictor of abstract attitudes toward the death penalty than either the respondents' fear of becoming crime victims or whether they had been victims of crime. Yet respondents' fear of crime victimization was a better predictor of their willingness to impose the death penalty or to accept mitigating circumstances during the penalty phase of a capital case than their abstract attitudes toward the criminal justice system. Respondents who were "somewhat" afraid of crime victimization were less likely to support the death penalty than were respondents who were "very" afraid or "not" afraid of victimization. These finding indicate that previous research on the death penalty may have been flawed because the wording of the questions asked was too abstract and unidimensional.
1983年对马里兰州两个县的610名受访者进行的电话调查发现，与受访者对成为犯罪受害者的恐惧或他们是否曾是犯罪受害者相比，受访者对刑事司法系统的总体态度能更好地预测其对死刑的抽象态度。然而，与他们对刑事司法系统的抽象态度相比，受访者对成为犯罪受害者的恐惧能更好地预测他们在死刑案件量刑阶段判处死刑或接受减轻处罚情节的意愿。“有点”害怕成为犯罪受害者的受访者比“非常”害怕或“不”害怕成为受害者的受访者支持死刑的可能性更小。这些发现表明，先前关于死刑的研究可能存在缺陷，因为所提问题的措辞过于抽象和单一。
