Using data collected in June, 1997 from a probability sample (N=709) of Kentucky's residents, the present paper examines the factors influencing attitudes toward death penalty and factors associated with changes in support for death penalty when alternative punitive measures for the offenders are presented. Confirming the conclusion drawn from several previous studies, our findings indicate that attitudes toward capital punishment are complex and multidimensional. While the majority of the population investigated (69.4%) tend to favor the death penalty, only 52.3% (i.e., 38.2% of the whole sample) of those who initially indicated support for capital punishment manifested stability of their opinions when "life in prison without parole and restitution made to the victim's family" is suggested as a possible alternative sentence. Results indicate that the attitudinal change is primarily a function of demographic factors such as age, gender, and race.

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This study tests a model for the impact that Ceausescu's pro-natalist policies had on the Romanian fertility rate between 1967 and 1989. Using time-series analysis the authors' findings show that the Ceausescu regime continually struggled with the Romanian population to increase the national birthrate. As a result the regime's policies, there was a significant increase in overall fertility between 1967 and 1989, when the Ceausescu regime was overthrown. Reasons are offered as to why Romania pursued such policies and was able to make them work, while other Eastern and Central European regimes proved to be less able to sustain drives to increase national fertility. This article also presents a model of what has happened to the Romanian fertility rate since 1989, showing that there has been a significant decline in fertility in the post-Communist period.

Based on the Japanese General Social Survey conducted in 2010 on a representative sample of adults, the present analysis intends to identify the factors more likely to predict variations in death penalty attitudes in Japan. Compared to death penalty proponents, those who oppose capital punishment are less likely to express punitive attitudes in general and to be dissatisfied with government expenditures on crime control. Relative to retentionists, abolitionists tend to have a higher level of social trust, show a higher level of support for public participation in the criminal justice process, are more likely to practice a religion, and are younger. Instrumental factors, such as victimization and fear of crime, symbolic factors, such as institutional trust, trust in the judiciary, and the police, as well as gender do not differentiate death penalty opponents from supporters. The results of the multinomial logistic regression show that residents who did not express agreement or disagreement with the death penalty have more in common with those who oppose capital punishment than with those who favor it. Although the majority of the population (65.2%) expressed support for death penalty, one in four respondents (26.1%) remained ambivalent regarding the use of capital punishment. Additionally, most of those who expressed an opinion (50.5%) said they would hesitate to recommend death, if chosen to serve in the newly instituted citizen judge system. Findings suggest that public support for death penalty is not as strong in the country as the Japanese government claims and that it requires further exploration.