Top

Political Behavior

Published in:

01-12-2009 | Original Paper

Dynamic Representation(s): Federal Criminal Justice Policy and an Alternative Dimension of Public Mood

Authors: Sean Nicholson-Crotty, David A. M. Peterson, Mark D. Ramirez

Published in: Political Behavior | Issue 4/2009

Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.

search-config

AI-assisted search

Off

Abstract

Does public policy respond to public opinion? Previous research suggests dynamic representation occurs in the aggregate. Yet, most of the evidence for policy response is limited to the policy intentions of elected officials on issues related to more or less government spending. We examine policy response to an alternative dimension of public mood, public preferences for more or less punitive criminal justice policies, using multiple indicators of policy from various stages of the policy-making process. Criminal justice policy should be responsive to public preferences given the public’s concern about crime and the negative social construction of criminals. Thus, there is an electoral incentive for public officials to respond to public preferences along this alternative dimension of public sentiment regarding criminal justice policy. We estimate a DYMIMIC model of federal criminal justice policy as a function of the multiple dimensions of public policy mood using Kalman filtering. The results indicate that criminal justice policy responds to the second, not the first, dimension of public mood. We find evidence that policy-makers at multiple stages of the policy process are able to differentiate among multiple signals from the public and respond appropriately. The results present a more sophisticated portrait of democratic responsiveness.

previous article Beyond Membership: A Sense of Community and Political Behavior

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 102.000 Bücher
über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

More recently, Stimson (2004) suggests that abortion may have evolved to be aligned with the more general domestic policy sentiment. All of the analyses about the effects of domestic policy mood, however, exclude abortion attitudes.

By using the term “genuine” we are not suggesting that attitudes about crime are unresponsive to elite or media influence, but instead we refer to the notion that punitive preferences are related to core-values of morality and equality and have a relatively low probability of being constructed at the time of survey response. This leads some scholars to suggest that attitudes toward punishment are very stable and reluctant to capricious change (Ellsworth and Gross 1994).

An exception to this claim is the work of Monroe (1998) showing a high degree of consistency between aggregate public opinion on foreign policy issues and public policy over time (also see Monroe 1979; Page and Shapiro 1983).

Stimson et al. (1995), for instance, measure policy as legislative roll call votes, interest group ratings of those votes, the ideological slant of amicus briefs filed by the Solicitor General, and Supreme Court votes.

See Walker (1993) for a discussion of the extensive discretion that police, prosecutors, and judges have traditionally enjoyed in the U.S. criminal justice system.

Both policy mood measures (dimensions 1 and 2) are taken directly from Stimson (1999) and are available at http://www.unc.edu/~jstimson/time.htm.

The crime index can also represent improvement in reporting practices (Nettler 1974) and changes in the seriousness of criminal activity (Skogan 1976).

The technique is similar to a hidden Markov model with a continuous rather than discrete latent state variable with a Gaussian distribution. Readers who are interested in the details of the Kalman filter and the DYMIMIC model in particular should refer to the work of Beck (1989) and Kellstedt et al. (1996).

We have estimated the model using racial policy preferences as the only indicator of public opinion as well as a simple bivariate model. In both instances the relationship between racial policy preferences and criminal justice policy is consistent with the results reported above.

Four lags were determined to be appropriate based on the AIC, SBIC, and a Likelihood Ratio test. The estimates are from a VARX model controlling for all the variables shown in Table 1. The latter ensures the models are fully specified. Since the measure of the latent state of criminal justice policy is estimated (see Table 1), Granger causality tests were also conducted between each observed indicator and the second dimension of mood. None of these tests indicate that policy or presidential attention Granger causes public opinion.

Anderson, J. E. (1997). Public policymaking, 3rd (ed.). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Bartels, L. M. (1991). Constituency opinion and congressional policy making: The Reagan defense build up. American Political Science Review, 85(2), 457–474.CrossRef

Beck, N. (1989). Estimating dynamic models using Kalman filtering. Political Analysis, 1(1), 121–156.CrossRef

Beckett, K. (1997). Making crime pay. New York: Oxford University Press.

Blumstein, A., & Beck, A. F. (1999). Population growth in the U.S. prisons, 1980–1996. Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, 26, 17–60.CrossRef

Brace, P., Sims-Butler, Kellie, Arceneaux, Kevin & Martin, J. (2002). Public opinion in the American states: New perspectives using national survey data. American Journal of Political Science, 46(1), 173–189.CrossRef

Canes-Wrones, B., Brady, D. W., & Cogan, J. F. (2002). Out of step, out of office: Electoral accountability and house members’ voting. American Political Science Review, 96(1), 127–140.CrossRef

Carmines, E. G., & Stimson, J. A. (1980). The two faces of issue voting. American Political Science Review, 74(1), 78–91.CrossRef

Carpenter, D. P. (1996). Adaptive signal processing, hierarchy, and budgetary control in federal regulation. American Political Science Review, 90(2), 282–302.

Dahrendorf, R. (1985). Law and order. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Davey, J. D. (1998). The politics of prison expansion. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Edsall, T. B., & Edsall, M. D. (1992). Chain reaction. New York: W. W. Norton.

Ellsworth, P. C., & Gross, S. R. (1994). Hardening of the attitudes: Americans’ views on the death penalty. Journal of Social Issues, 50(2), 19–52.CrossRef

Engle, R., & Watson, M. (1981). A one-factor multivariate time series model of Metropolitan wage rates. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 76, 774–780.CrossRef

Erikson, R. S. (1976). The relationship between public opinion and state policy: A new look based on some forgotten data. American Journal of Political Science, 20(1), 25–36.CrossRef

Erikson, R. S., Mackuen, M. B., & Stimson, J. A. (2002). The macro polity. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Fernandez, K. (2003). Race, political institutions, and criminal sentencing: A multi-level analysis. Paper presented at the Race, Crime, and Voting Conference at New York University.

Fiorina, M. P. (1981). Retrospective voting in American national elections. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Freeman J. R. (1983). Granger causality and the time series analysis of political relationships. American Journal of Political Science, 27(2), 327–358.CrossRef

Freeman, J. R., Williams, J. T., & Lin, Tse-min (1989). Vector autoregression and the study of politics. American Journal of Political Science, 33(4), 842–877.CrossRef

Gordon, D. (1994). The return of the dangerous classes: Drug prohibition and policy politics. New York: Norton.

Gormley, W. T. (1986). Regulatory issue networks in a federal system. Polity, 18(4), 595–620.CrossRef

Granger, C. W. J., & Newbold, P. (1974). Spurious regressions in econometrics. Journal of Econometrics, 2, 111–120.CrossRef

Hartley, T., & Russett, B. (1992). Public opinion and the common defense: Who governs military spending in the United States. American Political Science Review, 86(4), 905–915.CrossRef

Huber, J. D., & McCarty, N. (2004). Bureaucratic capacity, delegation, and political reform. American Political Science Review, 98(3), 481–494.CrossRef

Hurley, P. A., & Hill, K. Q. (2003). Beyond the demand-input model: A theory of representational linkages. Journal of Politics, 65(2), 304–326.CrossRef

Hurwitz, J., & Peffley, M. (1997). Public perceptions of race and crime: The role of racial stereotypes. American Journal of Political Science, 41(2), 375–401.CrossRef

Hurwitz, J., & Peffley, M. (2005). Playing the race card in the post-Willie Horton era: The impact of racialized code words on support for punitive crime policy. Public Opinion Quarterly, 69(1), 99–112.CrossRef

Iyengar, S. (1991). Is anyone responsible? Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Jackson, P. I., & Carroll, L. (1981). Race and the war on crime: The sociopolitical determinants of municipal police expenditures in 90 non-Southern U.S. cities. American Sociologial Review, 46(3), 290–305.CrossRef

Jacobs, L. R., & Shapiro, R. Y. (2000). Politicans don’t pander. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Jacobs, L. R., & Shapiro, R. Y. (2002). Politics and policymaking in the real world: Crafted talk and the loss of democratic responsiveness. In Manza, J., Cook, F. L., & Page, B. I. (Eds.), Navigating public opinion (pp. 54–75). New York: Oxford University Press.

Kellstedt, P. M. (2003). The mass media and the dynamics of American racial attitudes. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Kellstedt, P. M., McAvoy, G. E., & Stimson, J. A. (1996). Dynamic analysis with latent constructs. Political Analysis, 5(1), 113–150.CrossRef

Kinder, D. R., & Sanders, L. M. (1996). Divided by color. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Kingdon, J. W. (1973). Congressmen’s voting decisions. New York: Harper and Row.

Lowi, T. J. (1964). American business, public policy, case-studies, and political theory. World Politics, 16(4), 677–715.CrossRef

Manza, J., & Cook, F. L. (2002). The impact of public opinion on public policy: The state of the debate. In Manza, J., Cook, F. L., & Page B. I. (Eds.), Navigating public opinion (pp. 17–32). New York: Oxford University Press.

Marion, N. E. (1994). A history of federal crime control initiatives, 1960-1993. London: Praeger.

Mayer, W. G. (1993). The changing American mind. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

McCubbins, M. D., Noll, R. R., & Weingast, B. R. (1987). Administrative procedures as instruments of political control. Journal of Law and Economic Organization, 3(2), 243–277.

McCubbins, M. D., & Schwartz, T. (1984). Congressional oversight overlooked: Police patrols versus fire alarms. American Journal of Political Science, 28(1), 165–179.CrossRef

McIntyre, J. (1967). Public attitudes toward crime and law enforcement. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 374(1), 34–46.CrossRef

Meier K. J. (1994). The politics of sin. New York: M. E. Sharpe.

Meier K. J., & O’Toole L. J. (2006). Bureaucracy in a democratic state. Baltimore, MD: The John Hopkins University Press.

Miller, J. (1996). Search and destroy: African American males in the criminal justice system. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Miller W. E., & Stokes D. E. (1963). Constituency influence in congress. American Political Science Review, 57(1), 45–56.CrossRef

Monroe, A. D. (1979). Consistency between public preferences and national policy decisions. American Politics Quarterly, 7(1), 3–19.CrossRef

Monroe, A. D. (1998). Public opinion and public policy, 1980–1993. Public Opinion Quarterly, 62(1), 6–28.CrossRef

Mooney, C. Z., & Lee, M.-H. (2000). The influence of values on consensus and contentious morality policy: U.S. death penalty reform, 1956–82. Journal of Politics, 62(1), 223–239.

Nettler, G. (1974). Explaining crime. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Nicholson-Crotty, S., & Meier, K. J. (2003). Crime and punishment: The politics of federal criminal justice sanctions. Political Research Quarterly, 56(2), 119–126.

Oliver, W. M. (2003). The law & order presidency. New York: Prentice Hall.

Page, B. I., & Shapiro, R. Y. (1983). Effects of public opinion on policy. American Political Science Review, 77(1), 175–190.CrossRef

Page, B. I., & Shapiro, R. Y. (1992). The rational public. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Peffley, M., & Hurwitz, J. (2002). The racial components of race-neutral crime policy attitudes. Political Psychology, 23(1), 59–75.CrossRef

Peterson, D. A. M., Grossback, L. J., Stimson, J. A., & Gangl, A. (2003). Congressional response to mandate elections. American Journal of Political Science, 47(3), 411–426.CrossRef

Poole, K. T., & Rosenthal, H. (1997). Congress: A political-economic history of roll call voting. New York: Oxford University Press.

Scheingold, S. (1984). The politics of law and order: street crime and public policy. New York: Longman.

Scheingold, S. (1992). The politics of street crime: Criminal process and cultural obsession. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

Schneider, A., & Ingram, H. (1993). Social construction of target populations: Implications for politics and policy. American Political Science Review, 87(2), 334–347.CrossRef

Schneider, A. L. (2006). Patterns of change in the use of imprisonment in the American states: An integration of path dependence, punctuated equilibrium and policy design approaches. Political Research Quarterly, 59(3), 457–470.CrossRef

Sears, D. O., Lau, R. R., Tyler, T. R., & Allen, H. M. (1980). Self-Interest vs. symbolic politics in policy attitudes and presidential voting. American Political Science Review, 74(3), 670–684.CrossRef

Secret, P. E., & Johnson, J. B. (1989). Racial differences in attitudes toward crime control. Journal of Criminal Justice, 17(5), 361–375.CrossRef

Silver, C., & Shapiro, R. (1984). Public opinion and the federal judiciary: Crime, punishment, and demographic constraints. Population Research and Policy Review, 3(3), 255–280.CrossRef

Skogan, W. G. (1976). The victims of crime: Some material findings. In Guenther, A. L. (Eds.), Criminal behavior in social systems (pp. 131–148). Chicago: Rand McNally.

Smith, K. B. (2004). The politics of punishment: Evaluating political explanations of incarceration rates. Journal of Politics, 66(3), 925–938.

Smith, M. A. (2000). American business and political power. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Stimson, J. A. (1999). Public opinion in America: moods, cycles, and swings, (2nd ed.). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Stimson, J. A. (2004). Tides of consent. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Stimson, J. A., Mackuen M. B., & Erikson, R. S. (1995). Dynamic representation. American Political Science Review, 89(3), 543–565.CrossRef

Stinchcombe, A., Adams, R., Heimer, C., Lane, K., Smith, T., & Taylor D. G. (1980). Crime and punishment: Changing American attitudes. New York: Jossey Bass.

Tatalovich, R., & Daynes B. W. (1998). Moral controversies in American politics. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.

Thomas C., & Cage R. (1976). Correlates of public attitudes toward legal sanctions. International Journal of Criminology and Penology, 4, 239–255.

Thomas, C., & Foster, S. (1975). A sociological perspective on public support for capital punishment. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 45(4), 641–657.CrossRef

Tyler T. R., & Weber, R. (1982). Support for the death penalty; instrumental response to crime, or symbolic attitude. Law & Society Review, 17(1), 21–46.CrossRef

Walker, S. (1993). Taming the system: The control of discretion in criminal justice, 1950-1990. New York: Oxford University Press.

Watson, M., & Engle, R. (1983). Alternative algorithms for the estimation of dynamic factor, MIMIC, and varying coefficient regression models. Journal of Econometrics, 23(3), 385–400.CrossRef

Wlezien, C. (1996). Dynamics of representation: The case of US spending on defense. British Journal of Political Science, 26(1), 81–103.CrossRef

Wlezien, C. (2004). Patterns of representation: Dynamics of public preferences and policy. Journal of Politics, 66(1), 1–24.CrossRef

Wood, B. D., & Waterman, R. (1994). Bureaucratic dynamics: The role of a bureaucracy in a democracy. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Title: Dynamic Representation(s): Federal Criminal Justice Policy and an Alternative Dimension of Public Mood
Authors: Sean Nicholson-Crotty
David A. M. Peterson
Mark D. Ramirez
Publication date: 01-12-2009
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Political Behavior / Issue 4/2009
Print ISSN: 0190-9320
Electronic ISSN: 1573-6687
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-009-9085-1

Springer Professional

Abstract

Please log in to get access to your license.

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Other articles of this Issue 4/2009

Who Said What? The Effects of Source Cues in Issue Frames

Inheritance and the Dynamics of Party Identification

Terrorist Threat, Leadership, and the Vote: Evidence from Three Experiments

Get Out on Behalf of Your Group: Electoral Participation of Latinos and Asian Americans

Beyond Membership: A Sense of Community and Political Behavior

The Unmet Potential of Interdisciplinary Research: Political Psychological Approaches to Voting and Public Opinion