This paper reports on research focused on measuring perceptions of justice vis-a-vis an examination of consensus in perceptions of appropriate punishments for convicted offenders. We used a factorial survey design to measure and analyze both the global judgments formed by individuals as well as the judgment-making principles that characterize the race by gender segments of the general population of one jurisdiction.

A proximity-to-crime perspective leads us to expect structured similarities and differences in judgments of appropriate prison sentences. A global judgment agreement indicator suggests consensus across the race by gender segments of the Boston metropolitan area over which crimes are serious and trivial. The same indicator, however, shows dissensus within the general population regarding perceptions of appropriate levels of punishment.

The research findings suggest that perceived or subjective proximity to crime has stronger implications than objective proximity for judgments of punishments for convicted offenders. The paper concludes that a sense of injustice in regard to punishments prevails for some segments of the general population.

Beer has been prohibited in Iceland since 1915, but wine has been legally imported since 1922, as have all other alcoholic beverages since 1934. Since 1932, ten unsuccessful attempts have been made to repeal the beer prohibition. Using the records of parliamentary debates, newspaper reports, opinion poll results, and interviews, we examine the degree of fit between this legislation and Gusfield's model of linkage between status politics and symbolic legislation (Gusfield, 1955, 1963, 1967). We also identify the type of demographic and economic settings that appear to create an environment that encourages symbolic politics.

During the 1960s and 1970s the American social movement for equal employment opportunity (EEO) succeeded in getting Congress and the courts to prohibit discrimination in employment on the basis of race, religion, national origin, and sex. We believe that the effectiveness of EEO laws depends not just upon their passage, however, but also upon their continuing successful mobilization. This is the first article to describe quantitatively the extent and outcomes of the mobilization of EEO laws at the appellate court level. It shows that mobilization is increasing; that the federal government and various interest groups are actively involved in the enforcement process; that much is at stake in many EEO cases; that alleged victims of discrimination win their court cases over half the time; and that reverse discrimination in EEO does not seem to be a serious problem.

In this paper, I examine two explanatory models for prison violence. In the first, the crowding model, violence is said to arise from the cognitive confusion and tension induced by crowded conditions. In the second, the social control model, violence is seen as one among several important control mechanisms deeply rooted in the social order of prison life. While these models are clearly not mutually exclusive, they have taken researchers along quite distinct paths. I consider three forms of violence in the Texas prison system: homicide, inmate-inmate assaults with weapons, and inmate-staff assaults. My results, which support the control model over the crowding model, have several methodological and policy implications.

This study uses data from courtroom observations and posttrial interviews with jurors who served in thirty-eight actual sexual assault trials. It addresses three issues: (1) the effects of several measures of evidence on jurors' judgments of a defendant's guilt, (2) the relative merits of jurors' recollections of the evidence and measures of evidence coded at trial by trained observers, and (3) whether the effects of jurors' attitudes toward crime and their sentiments toward victims and defendants depend on the strength of the evidence, as Kalven and Zeisel (1966) contended. We find that both trial- and juror-level measures of evidence adequately capture the effects of evidence, and that neither measure is inherently preferable. Also, while jurors were influenced by extralegal factors, these effects were largely limited to weak cases in which the state presented little hard evidence, which is consistent with Kalven and Zeisel's “liberation hypothesis.”

In a recent study of small claims mediation and adjudication in an Ontario court, Vidmar introduced the concept of “admitted liability” (1984). He argued that it is this case characteristic and not the forum type that accounts for the greater likelihood of accommodative settlements in mediation than in adjudication, as well as the higher rates of compliance with mediated outcomes. This article reanalyzes some of Vidmar's data in conjunction with both previously reported and new data about small claims cases in Maine. We conclude that the forum type remains a stronger predictor of case outcome and compliance than any case characteristic. However, the data do support Vidmar's alternative hypothesis that case characteristics help specify the relationships between forum type, on the one hand, and outcome and levels of compliance on the other.