+(,121/,1(

Citation:
Generos Ortet-Fabregat; Jorge Perez, An Assessment of
Attitudes towards Crime among Professionals in the
Justice System, 32 Brit. J. Criminology 193, 207

Content downloaded/printed from HeinOnline

Tue Aug 15 13:06:43 2017

-- Your use of this HeinOnline PDF indicates your acceptance

of HeinOnline's Terms and Conditions of the license
agreement available at http://heinonline.org/HOL/License

-- The search text of this PDF is generated from

uncorrected OCR text.

-- To obtain permission to use this article beyond the scope

of your HeinOnline license, please use:

Copyright Information

Use QR Code reader to send PDF to

your smartphone or tablet device
 BRIT.J. CRIMINOL. VOL.32 NO.2 SPRING 1992

AN ASSESSMENT OF THE ATTITUDES TOWARDS

CRIME AMONG PROFESSIONALS IN THE CRIMINAL
JUSTICE SYSTEM
GENER6S ORTET-FABREGAT* and JORGE PAREZ**

Attitudes towards crime held by professionalsin the criminaljustice system seem to be relevant to the
implementation of crime control measures andprison reform programmes. With the aim of describing
and comparing the attitudes of these professionalstowards the causes, prevention, and treatment of
crime, two studies were carriedout.
In Study 1, a Likert attitude scale was constructed. The Attitudes towards Crime Scale (ACS)
showed acceptable levels of reliability and validity. In Study 2 the ACS was administeredto various
samples of professionalsin the criminaljustice system. Results showed that attitudes of all groups
tended to be favourable to environmental causes and preventive-rehabilitationgoals through social
assistance. However, expected differences among professionalgroups were found.

Crime prevention and prisoner rehabilitation goals depend in great part on the
performance of professionals in the criminal justice system. According to attitude
theory (Ajzen and Fishbein 1980), attitudes are predictors of behaviour. Thus,
attitudes can be seen as predictors of professional behaviour in interventions relating to
crime (Hogarth 1974; Seitz 1989), and accordingly the study of attitudes towards
crime held by professionals in the criminal justice system can positively contribute to
the implementation of crime control measures and prison rehabilitation programmes
(Melvin et al. 1985).
From a theoretical point of view, one of the most attractive proposals for explaining
attitudes towards crime is that of Carroll et al. (1987). These authors propose a
framework for understanding individual differences among criminal justice decision-
makers and the implications of these differences for sentencing decisions. According to
this approach, individual difference variables including sentencing goals (punishment,
retribution, rehabilitation, incapacitation, deterrence), attributions about the causes of
crime (parental upbringing, mental illness, poverty, and so on), ideology (conserva-
tism, liberalism) and personality (authoritarianism, dogmatism, locus of control) can
be causally ordered. The authors organize these variables by using concepts from both
the Ajzen and Fishbein (1980) theory of reasoned action and the attributional analysis
of sentencing decisions in judicial circles (Carroll 1978; Diamond and Herhold 1981).
The reasoned action theory is a model for explaining attitudes as predictors of
behaviour-in this case, attitudes towards crime as predictors ofsentencing behaviour.

* Centre for Criminology, Faculty of Law, University of Edinburgh.

** Unitat de Psicologia MEdica, Departament de Farmacologia i de Psiquiatria, Universitat Aut6noma de
Barcelona.
All correspondence should be addressed to Gener6s Ortet-Fabregat, Departament de Psicologia, UniversitatJaume
I, Campus de Borriol, Edifici C, 12080 Castell6, Spain.
We would like to thank Professor Fredrick H. McClintock and Ms Ruth Lewis for their invaluable assistance and
useful comments.
 G. ORTET-FABREGAT AND J. PEREZ

The attributional approach states that attributions about the causes of crime precede
sentencing goals, which in turn lead to sentencing decisions. The reader can find a
detailed description of the model in Carroll et al. (1987).
The importance of social attitudes or ideology (Eysenck and Wilson 1978; Miller
1973) regarding attitudes towards crime is well reported in Carroll et al. (1987) and
taken into account in their model. However, it is a significant factor which must be
emphasized. Social attitudes are related to opinions about the causes of antisocial
behaviour and viewpoints about how to prevent and treat crime. Those professionals in
the criminal justice system with more conservative attitudes hold the view that the
causes of crime are stable aspects of the individual (heredity or personality). They also
believe that individuals choose freely to commit crime. Therefore, punishment and
retribution must be society's answer to criminal behaviour. Professionals who hold a
liberal ideology place the primary blame for criminal activities on environmental and
social factors; they support political measures against social and economic misfortunes,
and put more emphasis on the rehabilitation of prisoners than on the punishment of
their behaviour (Kennedy and Homant 1986; Ollenburger 1986).
Another consistent result in this kind of research is that attitudes towards crime vary
according to professional role. Thus, professionals working in the field of the social
rehabilitation of prisoners (e.g. prison rehabilitation teams) and representing defen-
dants (e.g. defence counsel) hold more favourable attitudes towards prisoners, as well
as a more liberal viewpoint about crime, than professionals who must arrest them (e.g.
law enforcement officers) or watch over them (e.g. correctional officers) (Martin and
Rodriguez 1989; Melvin el al. 1985; Saunders 1988).
The present study is directed at describing and comparing attitudes of professionals
in the criminal justice system towards the causes, prevention, and treatment of crime.
Two studies were carried out. In Study 1, a scale of attitudes towards crime was
developed; in Study 2, the scale thus created was administered to professionals in the
criminal justice system.

STUDY 1
Research into attitude variables relating to crime requires standardized, psychometri-
cally sound measurements (Brodsky and Smitherman 1983). This not only allows the
objective study of such attitude variables but also produces contrasting results. The
need for objective measures is especially relevant in this field of research, characterized
as it is by diversity of measurement types, not all of which are reliable and valid (Ortet
1990).
The major purpose of Study I is to develop a scale of attitudes towards crime
comprising three independent scales: an attitude scale towards the causes of crime; an
attitude scale towards the prevention of crime; and an attitude scale towards the
treatment of crime.

Method
Subjects
The sample consisted of 382 second-year university students of the psychology and
medicine schools at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Of these students, 107
194
 ATTITUDES TOWARDS ORIME

were males with a mean age of 20 (SD = 1.7) and 275 were females with a mean age of
20 (SD= 1.8).

Materials
All subjects positioned themselves on the following attitude scales.
1. An experimental version of the Attitudes towards Crime Scale (ACS). It included
three Likert attitude scales: the Attitudes towards the Causes of Crime Scale (ACSc),
the Attitudes towards the Prevention of Crime Scale (ACSp), and the Attitudes
towards the Treatment of Crime Scale (ACSt).
The sixty-nine items of the ACS were obtained from other attitude towards crime
scales, mainly from Brodsky and Smitherman (1983), and statements taken from the
literature about the scientific background of crime or mentioned to the authors by
professionals in the criminal justice system. Each item was placed in one of the three
ACS scales according to a rational criterion (Kline 1986): twenty-two items were
included in the ACSc, twenty-five in the ACSp and twenty-two in the ACSt. Items in
the three scales had five response alternatives with a score from 1 to 5 (disagree
strongly= 1, disagree = 2, undecided = 3, agree = 4, agree strongly= 5).
2. The Catalan version of the Wilson-Patterson Attitude Inventory (WPAI) (Ortet
et al. 1990). The WPAI (Wilson 1975) is a fifty-item social attitude scale written in
catchphrase format. Scores range from 0 to 100; high scores are linked with a
conservative ideology, low scores with a liberal ideology.
3. The Catalan version of the Attitudes towards Prisoners Scale (ATPS) (Ortet and
Perez 1989). The ATPS (Melvin et al. 1985) is a 36-item Likert scale assessing general
attitudes towards prisoners. High scores represent positive attitudes and low scores
represent negative attitudes towards prisoners. Positive attitudes view the prisoner as a
normal person capable of positive change, whereas negative scores reflect the view that
prisoners are basically deviant individuals.

Procedure
The attitude scales were answered anonymously in university classrooms. Item
selection for the ACS was made by means of separate factor analysis (Anastasi 1988;
Kline 1986; Palmer et al. 1989) for each one of the three scales. The principal
components method and the varimax rotation were used, and the number of factors
was determined on the basis of the scree test (Cattell 1979). The empirical criterion for
keeping an item in a particular scale was whether it had a factor loading above or equal
to 0.30 in one of the resultant factors and a lower factor loading in the other.
Scores for the ACS scales were obtained by summing the value of each item (from
1 to 5, after reversing the scores of the negative items) and dividing it by the number of
items in each scale. By this process scores ranged between I and 5 were obtained for
each one of the three scales.

Results
Item selection
The factor analysis process described above was made for the ACSc. A two-factor
solution was chosen as the best representation of attitudes towards the causes of crime.
 G. ORTET-FABREGAT AND J. PEREZ

TABLE 1 Factor Loadings on the Two PrincipalRotated Factorsfor the ACSc

I tern I II Communality

Hereditaryand individual causes

A person becomes a criminal because it is carried in the blood 0.79 -0.19 0.66
Criminals are born criminals 0.67 -0.18 0.48
Crime is determined mainly by one's genetic make-up 0.65 -0.19 0.41
Many gypsies commit crimes because they carry it in the blood 0.61 -0.19 0.41
Crime is due only to hereditary factors 0.59 -0.16 0.37
Crime is caused by an excess of freedom in society 0.55 -0.01 0.30
If there were not so much permissiveness, there would not be so much
crime 0.53 -0.06 0.29
Crime is caused by mental illness 0.49 0.05 0.25
Most criminals are mentally ill 0.49 0.18 0.27
Criminals cannot change their destiny 0.45 -0.11 0.22
Criminality is predestined 0.40 0.15 0.19
Social andenvironmental causes
Crime is fundamentally due to a shortage of economic and labour
resources -0.03 0.60 0.37
Crime is due only to social and physical environment -0.06 0.59 0.35
Unemployment is the most important cause of crime 0.02 0.56 0.31
Crime is more often a flaw in our society than a flaw in the offender -0.24 0.54 0.35
Most criminals have poor cultural and educational levels -0.08 0.52 0.28
Most criminals received a poor quality of education at school 0.05 0.51 0.26
Many criminals do not have the opportunity to behave socially -0.20 0.49 0.28
Drugs are the main cause of crime 0.18 0.42 0.21
Ifa person commits a crime it is because hejshe wants to' 0.19 -0.38 0.18
Eigcnvalue 4.2 2.2
% variance 21.2 11.4

Reversed score.

Two of the original items were eliminated because they had factor loadings lower than
0.30 and another item was reversed for having negative factor loading. These two
factors were labelled hereditary and individual causes and social and environmental causes.
Table 1 presents the ACSc selected items, their factor loadings and communalities,
together with the eigenvalues and the percentage of variance accounted for of each of
the two factors.
Similarly, factor analysis of the ACSp items produced a two-factor solution as the
best representation of attitudes towards the prevention of crime. The prevention factors
were labelled coercive prevention and social intervention prevention. Three items were
eliminated for having factor loadings lower than 0.30. Four of the remaining items were
reversed as they had negative factor loadings. The selected ACSp items are presented in
Table 2, together with factor analysis results.
For the ACSt, the factor analysis solution adopted was one substantive main factor
for attitudes towards the treatment of crime. This was labelled assistancevs. punishment.
Three of the original items were eliminated for their low factor loadings (lower than
0.30), and seven were reversed because their factor loadings were negative (the
punishment ones). Table 3 presents the ACSt items and the resulting factor analysis.

Reliability and validity

Table 4 presents the internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's alpha) and the
test-re-test reliability coefficients for the three ACS scales. The test-re-test reliability
was
 ATTITUDES TOWARDS CRIME

TABLE 2 FactorLoadings on the Two PrincipalRotated Faclorsfor the ACSp

Item I II Communality

Coercive prevention
Tougher punishment measures are necessary for making offenders
think before committing a crime 0.82 -0.12 0.70
It is necessary to harden methods ofpunishment in order to prevent
crime 0.81 -0.10 0.68
Strict and hard law enforcement is the best way of preventing crime 0.76 -0.11 0.59
Boys caught for their first crime must be harshly punished 0.71 -0.18 0.54
The best way of preventing crime is by bringing back the death
penalty 0.70 -0.09 0.50
The police must have more autonomy with regard to law enforcement 0.66 -0.12 0.46
The criminal justice system usually obstructs the work of the police 0.57 -0.09 0.34
Crime would disappear with a greater police presence 0.57 0.03 0.32
When a boy is caught for his first crime, the best preventive measure
is to put him in gaol 0.55 -0.24 0.36
The best way of preventing crime is to put drug addicts in gaol 0.48 -0.17 0.26
Social interventionprevention
It is necessary to create and improve youth institutions where children
at high risk of becoming delinquents could attend -0.08 0.69 0.48
Professionals in the criminal justice system have to know about recent
scientific knowledge in relation to crime -0.08 0.63 0A0
In order to prevent crime it is necessary to put more money into
deprived areas -0.16 0.58 0.37
An effective way of preventing crime would be by detecting and
assisting adolescents who are at high risk of becoming delinquents 0.14 0.57 0.35
In the field ofcrime it is not possible to talk about preventive
measur& 0.17 -0.56 0.35
Efforts directed at the prevention of crime are a waste of time' 0.25 -0.56 0.38
To prevent crime, more community workers are not necessary* 0.25 -0.52 0.33
To prevent crime, professionals with educative functions are necessary -0.17 0.50 0.28
An effective way of preventing crime would be for everybody to have
the opportunity of attaining a good educational and cultural level 0.01 0.48 0.23
Progressive elimination of poor areas of big cities would decrease
crime significantly 0.01 0.41 0.17
If the powers that be had more knowledge about factors related to
crime, it would be easier to prevent crime -0.18 0.39 0.19
Crime is exdzlsively a police problem = 0.25 -0.35 0.19
Eigenvalue 5.9 2.5
% variance 27.1 11.7

'Reversed scores.

established by re-testing the ACS scales with a group of 130 students a month after the
first test and finding the Pearson correlation coefficient between pre-test and post-test
scores. All the coefficients ranged between 0.71 and 0.93.
The correlation matrix among attitude scales administered to the student sample is
shown in Table 5. These correlation coefficients were used as indices of concurrent
validity (expected relationship with other tests) of the ACS scales. The relationship
between the WPAI (conservative ideology) and the hereditaty and individualcauses factor,
and between the WPAI and the coercivepreventionfactor were significant and positive, as
was expected. In contrast, the relationships between the WPAI and the social and
environmental causes and social intervention prevention factors and the treatment assistance
pole were significant and negative. The indices were even higher, but reversed to
 G. ORTET-FABREGAT AND J. PEREZ

TABLE 3 Factor Loadings on the Main Factorfor the ACSt

Item I Communality

Assistance vs. punishment

Home leave for inmates should not be allowed' -0.74 0.54
Criminals need strong treatment in prison, -0.73 0.54
Hard work is the best rehabilitation measure for criminals -0.73 0.53
Every prisoner should have the opportunity to do paid work while serving
hisJher sentence 0.69 0.48
Physical punishment is necessary, from time to time, so that criminals get what
they deserve -0.67 0.44
Application of treatments aimed at social rehabilitation of criminals must be
favoured 0.64 0.42
The criminal justice system should be harder with criminals' -0.64 0.42
When the conditions of imprisonment are improved (spaciousness, cleanliness,
intimacy, etc.), rehabilitation will be easier 0.64 0.41
State powers should designate a lot more money to build more humane prisons 0.54 0.30
Loss of freedom, without any kind of rehabilitation measure, is a poor penal
method 0.50 0.25
A first offence should not be punished with prison 0.48 0.23
An increase in the cultural level of criminals can be an important factor in
achieving their rehabilitation 0.47 0.22
It is an injustice that society pays for prisoners to eat without working' -0.46 0.21
It is necessary to assess the effectiveness of treatment programmes for criminals 0.45 0.20
The most dangerous criminals should be segregateda -0.32 0.17
Reform of the current penitentiary system is fundamental for achieving the
rehabilitation aim 0.42 0.17
For the elimination of crime, penalties other than imprisonment are necessary 0.41 0.17
Drug addicts must be treated like patients 0.35 0.12
Current prisons are 'schools of crime' because of lack of economic and human
resources 0.30 0.08
Eigenvalue 6.0
% variance 31.6

Reversed scores.

TABLE 4 Internal Consistency (cx; n =382) and Test-Re-test (one month; n =

130) Reliabilitiesfor the ACS Scales
Scale Factor Method Coefficient

ACSc I c 0.80
(causes of crime) (hereditary and Test-re-test 0.78
individual)
II a 0.77
(social and Test-re-test 0.71
environmental)
ACSp I 0.88
(prevention of crime) (coercive) Test-re-test 0.87
II a 0.88
(social Test-re-test 0.73
intervention)
ACSt I 0.83
(treatment of crime) (assistance Test-re-test 0.93
vs. punishment)
 ATTITUDES TOWARDS CRIME

TABLE 5 CorrelationMatrix among Attitude Scales

ACSc ACSp ACSt

I II I II I ATPS WPAI

ACSc I
(hereditary and
individual)
II -0.26 -
(social and
environmental)
ACSp I 0.55 -0.36 -
(coercive)
II -0.36 0.49 -0.39 -
(social
intervention)
ACSt I -0.54 0.49 -0.81 0.57 -
(assistance
vs. punishment)
ATPS -0.62 0.47 -0.74 0.47 0.80 -
WPAI 0.44 -0.23 0.59 -0.24 -0.53 -0.55

All correlation coefficients were p<0.001.

WPAI-ACS factors correlation coefficients, among the ATPS (positive attitudes

towards prisoners) and the resultant factors of the ACS scales.

Discussion
The use of factor analysis has been considered as an appropriate method for the
creation of Likert-type attitude scales (Kline 1986), and it has been used for the
construction ofattitude scales similar to the ACS (Carroll et al. 1987; Melvin et al. 1985;
Nelsen et al. 1982; Ollenburger 1986; Palmer et al. 1989).
When the ACSc items were analysed, two main dimensions were found (see
Table 1). The first one, labelled hereditary and individualcauses, comprised items related
to genetics, fate, and mental illness, as well as the lack of strict rules of social control, as
causes of criminal behaviour. The second one, labelled social and environmental causes,
measured attitudes related to economic, learning, or educational factors; in short, to
social disadvantage aspects that would lead the individual to commit crimes.
In relation to the prevention of crime (ACSp), two main factors were found (see
Table 2). They were labelled coercive prevention and social interventionprevention. The first
one involved items related to fear of detention, severe punishments, and strict law
enforcement; in short, the threat of punishment acting as a deterrent to criminal
behaviour. The second factor was composed of items related to crime prevention
through the intervention of social agents, youth institutions, and community centres
directed at helping young people at high risk, together with the removal of poverty and
other social disadvantages attributable to lack of economic resources. This dimension
also included the necessity for different professionals and politicians to -be aware of
scientific knowledge about crime.
The third of the ACS scales, the ACSt, presented one substantive factor. This
dimension was labelled assistance vs. punishment (see Table 3). High scores on this
 G. ORTET-FABREGAT AND J. PEREZ

dimension reflect the first extreme, i.e. treatment of prisoners based on social assistance
and educational, non-punitive measures, the need for more humane prisons, alterna-
tives to conventional prison regimes, and the need to assess the effectiveness of
treatment programmes for offenders. Low scores were linked to punishment as the
social response to criminals (punitive prisons, physical punishments, hard work).
The internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) and temporal stability (test-re-test)
reliability coefficients of ACS scales seem acceptable (see Table 4).
Positive and significant relationships were found between the WPAI (conservative
social attitudes) and attitudes favouring the hereditary and individual causes of crime,
and punishment as a method of crime prevention and treatment. This was the opposite
to the negative and significant relationships found between the WPAI and the
environmental and social assistance approaches. These results would be expected from
social attitudes theory (Eysenck and Wilson 1978; Miller 1973), so they may be
considered as a good index of the construct validity (gaining predicted results from
application of a theory: Anastasi 1988) of the ACS scales. These findings are similar to
those of other research projects that have studied the relationship between social
attitudes and attitudes towards crime (Carroll et al. 1987; Harvey 1986; Kennedy and
Homant 1986; Nelsen et al. 1982).
Furthermore, the correlation matrix among the factors of the ACS scales and the
other attitude scales administered to the student sample show good levels of concurrent
validity for the factors of the ACS scales (Anastasi 1988). Attitudes favouring
individual causes of crime had high positive, significant coefficients with attitudes
favouring prevention and treatment by punishment, whereas belief in environmental
causes of crime was positively related to social intervention-rehabilitation attitudes and
to positive attitudes towards prisoners, and significantly negatively related to the
individual cause-punishment attitudes.
Finally, it must be noted that although the number of female university students in
this study was considerably higher than that of males, when a factor analysis was
conducted for each sex no differences were found in the factorial structure of the ACS
scales.
According to these findings, the ACS scales would fulfil the basic psychometric
requirements (Bohrnstedt 1970) and they could be used in research on crime.

STUDY 2
The major aim of Study 2 was to explore and describe attitudes towards the causes,
prevention, and treatment of crime by professionals in the criminal justice system.
Other objectives of Study 2 were (a) to compare professionals' attitudes according to
their profession, and (b) to test the validity of the ACS scales developed in Study I
using the method of contrasted groups.

Method
Subjects
The samples selected for Study 2 were different groups of professionals in the criminal
justice system from Catalonia, Spain, together with the student sample of Study 1. The
groups of professionals are described below.
200
 ATTITUDES TOWARDS CRIME

Rehabilitationgroup A sample of the rehabilitation teams and the social workers from
Catalan prisons. It included sixty-four professionals (thirty-one males and thirty-three
females) with an average age of 29.36 years (SD=4.8), and a sample of the juvenile
protection service formed by sixty professionals (thirty-five males and twenty-five
females) with an average age of 31.55 years (SD=5.1). Both groups comprised
psychologists, criminologists, teachers, and social workers.

Penaljusticegroup Sixty professionals related to penal justice (eight public prosecutors,

sixteen judges and thirty-six lawyers) from Barcelona. Forty were males and twenty
were females; the average age was 38.05 years (SD= 10.25).

Correctionalofficers Seventy-one correctional officers from the Catalan prisons, sixty-

seven male and four female; their average age was 28.53 years (SD=5.2).

Law enforcement officers A sample of 162 agents of different police forces (thirty-four
Catalan, 114 local and fourteen state). Their mean age was 33.06 years (SD= 6.6); 151
were males and eleven were females.

Materials
The three Attitude towards Crime Scale (ACS) scales standardized in Study 1, ACSc,
ACSp, and ACSt, were used. For the sub-scales and items included see Tables 1-3.
Scores for the ACS scales were obtained by summing the value of each item for each
one of the four sub-scales ofASCc and ACSp, or for the whole treatment scale (i.e. from
1 (disagree strongly) to 5 (agree strongly) and dividing the result by the number of
items in each one of the subscales and the treatment scale.
In both the ACSc and ACSp sub-scales, scores of about 5 demonstrate agreement
with the measured dimension, whereas scores of about I demonstrate disagreement
with it. In the case of the ACSt, high scores are related to the assistance pole, low scores
to the punishment pole; 3 would be the neutral point of the measured dimension.
The test included questions about professionals' personal and social characteristics.

Procedure
The rehabilitation group and correctional officer samples were randomly selected by
one of the psychologists at each one of the Catalan prisons; the law enforcement officers
sample was randomly selected by one of the psychologists of the police forces in
Catalonia. In the case of the penal justice group, scales were sent to a randomly selected
sample of public prosecutors, judges, and lawyers of Barcelona province, together with
stamped addressed envelopes for return of the completed tests. The response rate was
approximately 45 per cent.
The ACS scales were administered or sent together with a brief rationale explaining
the motives and aims of the research.

Results
Means and standard deviations on the ACS scales for the various groups are presented
in Table 6. In order to determine the extent to which the professional group variable
 G. ORTET-FABREGAT AND J. PEREZ

TABLE 6 Means and StandardDeviations on ACS Scalesfor the Sample Groups

Hereditary/ Social/ Coercive Social Assistance
individual environmental prevention intervention vs.
causes causes prevention punishment
R X R R .R
n (SD) (SD) (SD) (SD) (SD)

Rehabilitation group 124 1.68 3.59 1.66 4.46 4.05

(0.4) (0.4) (0.5) (0.3) (0.4)
Penal justice group 60 1.78 3.73 1.79 4.26 4.00
(0.4) (0.4) (0.6) (0.4) (0.5)
Students 382 1.94 3.67 2.35 4.16 3.64
(0.5) (0.5) (0.8) (0.4) (0.5)
Correctional officers 71 2.16 3.45 2.37 4.03 3.49
(0.6) (0.4) (0.7) (0.5) (0.5)
Law enforcement
officers 162 2.12 3.42 2.48 4.01 3.50
(0.5) (0.5) (0.7) (0.5) (0.5)

influenced attitudes towards the causes, prevention, and treatment of crime, an

analysis of variance was used showing the differences in mean ACS scales scores for
each professional category (rehabilitation group, penal justice group, correctional
officers, law enforcement officers, and university students). The five groups were
significantly different in their attitudes towards hereditary and individual causes [F(4,
794)=18.08, p<0.001], towards social and environmental causes [F(4, 794)= 10.24,
p<0.001], towards coercive prevention [F(4, 794)=32.92, p<0.001], towards social
intervention prevention [F(4, 794) = 22.60, p<0.00 1], and towards social vs. punishment
treatment [F(4, 794) = 30.05, p < 0.001 ].
As was expected, the rehabilitation group and penal justice group showed the lowest
scores on the individual-coercive-punishment attitudinal dimensions, and the highest
scores on the environmental-social intervention-rehabilitation attitudinal dimensions.
The correctional and law enforcement officers disagreed slightly less strongly with the
first se.t of attitudes and agreed slightly less strongly with the second set. Students' scores
were located just in the middle, except for social and environmental causes, where they
obtained a score between the rehabilitation and the penal justice groups (see Table 6).
Figure I presents the descending sequence of the, mean scores by various samples on
the ACS scales. Differences between the five pairs of means were analysed by means of
the Duncan procedure (p<0.05). The non-significantly different groups (clusters) for
each one of the attitude scales are in the same square; different squares show clusters
which are significantly different from each other.
An attitudinal pattern of the type generally expected was observed, where the
student sample was located between the rehabilitation-penal justice groups and the
correctional-law enforcement officers, except for the social and environmental causesfactor,
as mentioned above.
Although that attitudinal pattern was found on almost all scales, this was accom-
panied for statistical significance only by the hereditary and individual causes and by social
assistance vs. punishment treatment (see Figure 1). However, the student sample was not
significantly different from the rehabilitation-penal justice cluster for social and
202
 ATTITUDES TOWARDS CRIME

SCALE PROFESSIONAL GROUPS

hereditary and
individual PJ
causes
ACSc
social and
environmental PJG STUCOF LE
causes

coercive
prevention LEO COF STU [I PJG G
ACSp
social ~= ~ ~ ~ ~ =
intervention RGSTU
prevention

assistance
ACSp VS. RHGPJG]] I[ IO COF I
punishment

FIG. 1 Descending sequence of the mean scores of the sample groups on the ACS scales;
different squares show clusters with significantly different attitudes (Duncan: p<0.05)

environmental causes, nor significantly different from the correctional officers-police

duster for coercive prevention. In the case of social interventionprevention, the rehabilitation
group was significantly different from the rest of the groups, and the student sample
was in the same cluster as the penal justice group.

Discussion
Previous data analysis with the samples of professionals from Study 2 (Ortet 1990)
found that the various professionals within the rehabilitation group (psychologists,
criminologists, teachers, and social workers) did not differ significantly in their ACS
scales scores. The same results were found among the professionals within the penal
justice group (public prosecutors, judges, and lawyers), and among the various police
forces (Catalan, local, and state) within the law enforcement officers. At the same time,
the attitude scores did not differ by sex, age or other background variables within each
professional group. However, for the student sample, females obtained mean scores
significantly slightly higher on social and environmental causes (t(380)=2.53,
p<0.05), social intervention prevention (t(380) =2.13, p<0.05), and assistance treat-
ment (t(380) = 2.58,p < 0.05) than males. These differences are in the same direction as
those reported by Ollenburger (19 6) with panel members, and Palmer et al. (1989)
with university students. Yet no significant differences between the sexes were found on
any other attitude scale, whether the other two ACS sub-scales, or the social attitudes
and attitudes towards prisoners scales used in Study 1.
In the various studies concerning attitudes to crime of professionals in the criminal
justice system, correctional officers have been considered a key group for study, as they
have a major role in carrying through prison rehabilitation programmes, and they are
 G. ORTET-FABREGAT AND J. PEREZ

an active part of the therapeutic environment (Hepburn 1987; Seitz 1989). The results
of this research show that correctional officers held less unfavourable attitudes towards
the individual causes view, and less favourable attitudes towards the social intervention
and assistance systems of prevention and treatment of crime, than rehabilitation and
penal justice groups. These results are similar to those of other studies (Melvin et al.
1985). Nevertheless, in this study, their attitudes towards crime tended to be on the
environmental and rehabilitation side; a good level of acceptance of and participation
in prison reform programmes would thus be expected.
Police forces have also been studied by various authors interested in attitudes
towards crime (Fielding and Fielding 1991; Goff and Kim 1987; Kennedy and
Homant 1986). According to various studies, police attitudes to the causes and
remedies for crime are usually conservative. Fielding and Fielding (1991) found that
the general adherence of the police to conservative conceptions of crime and punish-
ment is derived from their experience of police work. The role the police play in law
enforcement (detention, apprehension, and interrogation) moulds police officers'
attitudes towards crime.
Police have a fundamental role to play not only in society's protection, but also in the
implementation of crime prevention measures. Police attitudes revealed in this study
lead to the expectation of good levels of acceptance of and participation in community-
based and social intervention programmes of crime prevention, beyond the deterrence
aspect of their profession.
Prison rehabilitation teams and social workers, as well as juvenile protection
professionals, strongly favoured social and environmental causes of crime, and non-
punitive social and educational intervention in criminal behaviour, as would be
expected (Begin 1983; Melvin et al. 1985). These attitudes are coherent with their
professional work. The implementation and assessment of rehabilitation programmes
for prisoners and community-based crime prevention measures would not be possible
without their professional work and their positive attitudinal predisposition.
Penal justice professionals are especially important in that they determine society's
response towards criminal behaviour. The goals of this response can be either
punishment-retribution or rehabilitation (Carroll et al. 1987; Palmer et al. 1989). In a
similar way to the rehabilitation group's attitudes, penal justice professionals held
attitudes very favourable to environmental factors as the main causes of crime, and
showed opinions very much in favour of rehabilitation goals in penal policy, as well as
very favourable attitudes to prevention of crime by social intervention. These results
are reinforced by those of other studies (Jackson 1988; Martin and Rodriguez 1989;
Ollenburger 1986). Thus it would be expected that in judicial sentences, the rehabili-
tation goal would be the primary consideration, fostering the development of prison
reform projects.
Results from Study 2 lend support to the concept of role (Gergen and Gergen 1986);
in this case, the role professionals have to develop in relation to offenders. This concept
acts as a main determinant of attitudes towards the causes, prevention, and treatment
of crime (Fielding and Fielding 1991; Luna et al. 1986; Saunders 1988), along with
other variables such as social attitudes (Carroll et al. 1987; Kennedy and Homant
1986), cultural level (Ollenburger 1986), and personality (Seitz 1989).
The concept of professional role helps to explain the differences found among the
attitudes of those professionals in more direct contact with offenders (correctional
 ATTITUDES TOWARDS CRIME

officers, law enforcement officers, rehabilitation group). The professional role involves
different levels of risk of receiving aversive stimuli from offenders (high for correctional
officers and police, low for rehabilitation teams). This fact probably determines in great
part favourable or unfavourable attitudes towards offenders. It is important to
remember the relevance of the professional function (vigilance, arrest, rehabilitation)
that these groups have to carry out, a function linked to the risk of receiving aversive
stimuli.
Nevertheless, it would be interesting to know what the social attitudes, and attitudes
towards crime, of correctional officers, police officers, and members of rehabilitation
teams were before they practised their profession, as well as to what extent social
attitudes influenced their choice of profession. Even so, it seems that police and
correctional officers hold more conservative social attitudes than social workers (Potter
et al. 1980), and social attitudes are clearly a key variable for explaining attitudes
towards crime (Hogarth 1974).
In the case of the penal justice group, knowledge of their social attitudes could help
us to understand their attitudes towards crime. As mentioned above, previous research
has shown that penal justice professionals' social attitudes are related to attitudes
towards crime (Carroll et al. 1987; Ollenburger 1986). The mail system used for
collecting the questionnaires, a method for which it is not unusual to find a low
response rate (cf. Carroll et al. 1987), meant that the more liberal professionals of this
group were more likely to return the completed forms, probably biasing the answers in
favour of the social causes and rehabilitation attitudes. At the same time, their risk of
receiving aversive stimuli from criminals is low. It would be interesting to compare the
penal justice professionals' social attitudes with those of correctional officers and police.

Conclusions
Two main conclusions arise from this study of attitudes towards crime. First, expected
differences in mean scores between various groups of professionals support the validity
of the ACS scales. Second, the results showed that all the Catalan professional groups
held basically a social and rehabilitation approach to the causes, treatment, and
prevention of crime. While, it would be unwise to pursue this conclusion too far, in the
words of Cullen et al. (1990) these data are important 'because they reveal the tenacity
of rehabilitation as a correctional ideology'.
Data from this and related studies suggest that professionals in the criminal justice
system believe that rehabilitation and extensive implementation of alternative
measures to classical imprisonment are desirable goals.

REFERENCES

AJZEN, I., and FISHBEIN, M. (1980), Understanding Attitudes and Predicting Social Behavior.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
ANASTASI, A. (1988), Psychological Testing. New York: Macmillan.
BGMn, G. (1983), Attitudes et comportements des qu6bicoisenvers les ditenu(e)s et ex-ditenu(e)s, research
report submitted to the Quebec Council for Social Research.
BOHRNSTEDT, G. W. (1970), 'Reliability and Validity Assessment in Attitude Measurement', in
G. F. Summers, ed., Attitude Measurement: 80-99. Chicago: Rand McNally.
 G. ORTET-FABREGAT AND J. PEREZ

BRODSKY, S. L., and SMITHERMAN, H. 0. (1983), Handbook of Scalesfor Research in Crime and
Delinquency. New York: Plenum Press.
CARROLL,J. S. (1978), 'Causal Attribution in Expert Parole Decisions', Journalof Personalityand
Social Psychology, 36: 1501-11.
CARROLL, J. S., PERKOWITZ, W. T., LuRinIo, A. J., and WEAVER, F. M. (1987), 'Sentencing
Goals, Causal Attributions, Ideology, and Personality', Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 52: 107-18.
CATTELL, R. B. (1979), The Scientfc Use of Factor Analysis in Behavioral and Life Sciences. New
York: Plenum Press.
CULLEN, F. T., SCOVRON, S. E., ScoTT, J. E., and BURTON, V. S. (1990), 'Public Support for
Correctional Treatment: The Tenacity of Rehabilitation Ideology', Criminal Justice and
Behavior, 17: 6-18.
DIAMOND, S. S., and HERHOLD, C.J. (1981), 'Understanding Criminal Sentencing: Views from
Law and Social Psychology', in J. M. Stephenson and J. M. Davis, eds., Progressin Applied
Social Psychology: 67-102. Chicago: Wiley.
EYsaNcl, H. J., and WILSON, G. D. (1978), The PsychologicalBasis of Ideology. Lancaster: MTP.
FIELDING, N. G., and FIELDING, J. (1991), 'Police Attitudes to Crime and Punishment', British
Journal of Criminology, 31: 39-53.
GERGEN, K. J., and GERGEN, M. M. (1986), Social Psychology. New York: Springer-Verlag.
GoFF, C. H., and Kin, R. J. (1987), 'Seriousness of Crimes: A Comparison of Canadian and
American Chiefs of Police and Detachment Commanders', CanadianPolice College Journal, 11:
1-12.
HARVEY, 0. J. (1986), 'Belief Systems and Attitudes toward the Death Penalty and Other
Punishments', Journalof Personality, 54:' 659-75.
HEPBURN, J. R. (1987), 'The Prison Control Structure and its Effects on Work Attitudes: The
Perceptions and Attitudes of Prison Guards', Journal of Criminal Justice, 15: 49-64.
HoGARTr, J. (1974), Sentencing as a Human Process. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
JAcKsoN, M. W. (1988), 'Lay and Professional Perceptions of Dangerousness and Other
Forensic Issues', CanadianJournalof Criminology/Revue Canadienne de Criminologie, 30: 215-29.
KENNEDY, D. B., and HOMANT, R. J. (1986), 'Security Managers' Attitudes toward Locus of
Responsibility for Crime', PsychologicalReports, 59: 199-205.
KLINE, P. (1986), A Handbook of Test Construction: Introduction to Psychometric Design. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
LUNA, A., OSUNA, E., and PALMA, A. (1986), 'Actitudes en los Medicos de la Ciudad de
Granada Ante el Consumo de Drogas y las Conductas Asociales Juveniles', Folia.europsiquid-
trica del Sury Este de Espaffa, 21: 435-44.
MARTIN, A. M., and RODRIGUEZ, A. (1989), 'La Explicaci6n Ingenua del Delito en Policias,
Jueces y Funcionarios de Prisiones', Revista de Estudios Penitenciarios,241: 19-33.
MELVIN, K. B., GRAmLING, L. K., and GARDNER, W. M. (1985), 'A Scale to Measure Attitudes
toward Prisoners', CriminalJustice and Behavior, 12: 241-53.
MILLER, W. (1973), 'Ideology and Criminal Justice Policy: Some Current Issues', Journal of
Criminal Law and Criminology, 64: 141-62.
NELSEN, E. A., EISENBERG, N., and CARVOLL, J. (1982), 'The Structure of Adolescents'
Attitudes towards Law and Crime', Journal of Genetic Psychology, 140: 47-58.
OLLENBURGER, J. C. (1986), 'Panel Members' Attitudes towards Justice', British Journal of
Criminology, 26: 372-84.
ORTET, G. (1990), 'Actituds de Professionals Relacionats amb la Delinqii~ncia Envers les

206
 ATTITUDES TOWARDS CRIME

Causes, la Prevenci6 i el Tractament d'Aquesta', doctoral thesis published in microfiche

format. Bellaterra, Barcelona: Autonomous University of Barcelona.
ORTET, G., and PAREZ, J. (1989), 'Escala d'Actituds Envers els Presos de Melvin et al., Versi6
Catalana', paper presented at V Reuni6 Anual de la SCRITC, Vic, Barcelona.
ORTET, G., PAREZ, J., and WILSON, G. D. (1990), 'Social Attitudes in Catalonia', Personality and
Individual Differences, 11: 857-62.
PALmER, D. L., GJIMOND, S., and BAKER, M. W. (1989), 'A Factor-analytic Study of English
and French Forms of a Measure of Attitudes toward Convicts and Ex-convicts', Canadian
Journal of CriminologylRevue Canadiennede Criminologie, 31: 155-67.
POTTER, L., WATSON, A., and WATSON, P. (1980), 'Changes in Conservatism of Prison Officers,
Police Officers and Social Workers During Training', Occasional Paper no. 4, Centre for
Social Work and Applied Social Studies, University of Leeds.
SAUNDERS, E.J. (1988), 'A Comparative Study ofAttitudes towards Child Sexual Abuse among
Social Work and Judicial System Professionals', Child Abuse and Neglect, 12: 83-90.
SEITZ, W. (1989), 'Relations between General Attitudes and Personality Traits of Prison
Officers and some Specific Attitudes towards Prisoners', in H. Wegener, F. Laisel, and J.
Haisch, eds., Criminal Behavior and the Justice System: PsychologicalPerspectives: 399-418. New
York: Springer-Verlag.
WILSON, G. D. (1975), Manualfor the Wilson-Patterson Attitude Inventoiy (WPAI). Windsor:
National Foundation for Educational Research.