Several studies have sought to link punitive public attitudes to attribution style and/or lay theories of crime. This research finds that those who believe criminal acts are the result of freely chosen and willful behavior are more likely to be punitive than those who feel crime is the result of external circumstances and constraints. These analyses focus on only one dimension of attributions: locus of control (internal/external). In this analysis, we include a second dimension, thought to be a better predictor of attitudes in social psychological research: stability/instability. In addition to measuring lay theories of crime causation, we also test for "belief in redeemability" (or beliefs about the ability of deviants to change their ways). Our hypothesis is that this other dimension of personal attributions (stability/instability) may be as critical in explaining support for highly punitive criminal justice policies as beliefs about criminal responsibility. We find evidence supportive of this model in an analysis of data from postal survey of residents of six areas in England.

As in the adage that `a conservative is just a liberal who has been mugged', many presume that punitive public attitudes are derived from the direct experience of crime and victimization. People become `fed up' with criminality and seek to strike back at lawbreakers. Social theories of punitiveness, on the other hand, typically portray punitiveness as a form of scape-goating in which offenders are just a stand-in population, masking more abstract anxieties. This survey was designed to explore both of these hypotheses with a sample ( N = 940) of the British public. A multivariate analysis of survey responses finds that factors such as concerns about the economy and the state of `the youth today' account for a substantial proportion of the effect of actual crime concerns on punitiveness. Crime-related factors, such as victimization experiences or anxieties about crime, on the other hand, do not appear to be strong predictors of punitiveness in this sample.

With the release of the Casey Report, Engaging Communities in FightingCrime (Casey, 2008), improving public confidence in criminal justice work, and community penalties in particular, has become a central concern for the British Government. Among the other suggestions for improving public confidence in community interventions is to require those doing community service work to wear fluorescent bibs identifying themselves as 'offenders'. In this article, we review what is known about public opinion regarding community penalties, and discuss two possible routes to changing these attitudes: one is cognitive and the other is emotive. We review the research evidence on both, and discuss the likelihood of either being successful. We conclude by returning to the context of the Casey Report and assessing the likelihood that the Casey proposals will be successful on the basis of the evidence reviewed.

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This article explores the gendered nature of crime by investigating the motivations and justifications used by male and female substance abusers whose current source of income is shoplifting. Drawing upon interviews from a larger study, this subsample of active male and female offender narratives produces several themes. First, despite difficult personal circumstances and constant need to satisfy drug addictions, agency in action is expressed in how male and female drug users negotiate criminal options in an urban drug market. Second, men give different reasons for shoplifting over other hustles than do the more common subject of shoplifting studies, women. Although men rationalize shoplifting as a logical alternative to more ''masculine'' crimes (e.g., robbery), women compare it to the highly ''feminized'' crime of sex work. What male and female shoplifters do seem to share is a similar assessment of financial rewards and harm. Shoplifting is constructed as a form of work by women but less clearly so by the men. Third, both the men and the women express themselves using gender constructs in a fluid and dynamic way. They revise and develop ideas about what is masculine and what is ''feminine.'' We conclude that gender and agency is played out in this urban environment through crime selection and underlying rationales. Keywords substance abuse, gender and crime/justice, drugs and crimeIn 2012, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reports, shoplifting in the United States increased by 6.3% from the previous year and made up almost 20% of all larceny theft recorded (U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2013). Most shoplifters are said to be the occasional, so-called nonprofessional or amateur shoplifter who does not make work of the crime but who is more psychologically, situationally, or socially motivated (Caputo, 2008a). Professional shoplifters who steal for economic gain or ''boosters,'' however, are estimated to make up roughly 10-20% of all offenders arrested for shoplifting (Cameron,