Keywords
American Punitiveness; Public Opinion; Crime-Control Policy; Racial Politics
Abstract
Despite the decay in the acceptability of explicit racism brought about by the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, implicit racism may continue to inform individual decision making even into the first quarter of the twenty-first century. Utilizing data from 25 years of the General Social Survey, this study examines how indicators of symbolic racism, a form of implicit racism, impact punitive policy preferences among the general United States population using separate logistic regression models isolating each indicator, plus a full model, for each outcome. Punitive policy preferences were operationalized as support for increased spending on crime prevention and harsher punishments. Controlling for a variety of factors such as conservatism, religiosity, nativity status, and explicit racism, this study found significant positive relationships between indicators of symbolic racism and preferences towards harsher courts and the death penalty; however, limited support was found for a relationship between indicators of symbolic racism and increased law enforcement spending and crime spending. Directions for how future research can further clarify the relationship between symbolic racism and preferences towards criminal justice policy are discussed.
Thesis Completion Year
2026
Thesis Completion Semester
Summer
Thesis Chair
Caudy, Michael
College
College of Community Innovation and Education
Department
Criminal Justice
Thesis Discipline
Criminal Justice
Language
English
Access Status
Open Access
Length of Campus Access
None
Campus Location
Orlando (Main) Campus
STARS Citation
Fulinello, Anthony T., "Symbolic Racism and Punitive Policy Preferences in the First Quarter of the Twenty-First Century" (2026). Honors Undergraduate Theses. 676.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/hut2024/676
Included in
American Politics Commons, Criminology Commons, Inequality and Stratification Commons, Politics and Social Change Commons, Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies Commons, Race and Ethnicity Commons, Social Justice Commons, Social Statistics Commons
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