Crime control in the 2000 presidential election: A symbolic issue

Crime Control in the 2008 Presidential Election: Symbolic Politics or Tangible Policies?

“…In that campaign, Bush spoke frequently about the death penalty, guns, and illicit drugs, while Gore proposed many ideas for gun control (Marion 2007;Marion and Farmer 2003). The topics in the 2004 campaign switched from crime control to homeland security, but many of the elements remained the same as issues like the death penalty, gun control, and illicit drugs once again resurfaced (Marion 2007;Pickler 2008).…”

Electoral Accountability in the Midst of Criminal Violence: Evidence from Mexico

“…The media tend to saturate viewers with coverage of crime news and sensationalize the issue (Romer et al 2003). Crime and security are also issues that political candidates, particularly those from right-wing parties, tend to emphasize in their campaigns (Marion and Farmer 2003;Smith 2010). In general, such exposure primes voters' concerns about insecurity (Beckett 1997;Altheide 2002) and may even affect their support for "iron fist" policies (Krause 2014).…”

“…Subnational executives can also influence violence trends through their crime spending or punishment policies (Simon 2006). Although national politicians cannot directly prosecute criminals, they have an even wider political capacity to frame political issues in terms of public insecurity and outrage about crime (Marion and Farmer 2003;Simon 2006;Smith 2010). Furthermore, incumbent party candidates may try to shift the blame for prevailing insecurity to other actors, ranging from the military, the police, or other government authorities to criminal groups.…”

Legislating Crime Policy from the White House: Presidential Success with Congress in the Passage of Federal Crime Control Policy

“…All of these studies, however, only looked at presidential activity on crime between the parties in a general sense. In other words, Republican and Democrats, for the most part, gave an equal number of speeches (Oliver 2003a), issued an equal number of executive orders (Oliver 2001), or equally campaigned on the issue of crime (Marion and Farmer 2003). What none of these studies to date had looked at is specific presidential support for specific crime bills, and it would appear that when Republicans get behind a crime control bill, they are more successful than their political counterpart.…”

“…Conventional wisdom has long held that crime control is more of a Republican issue and one in which they can lord over the Democrats (Dillon 1998;Scheingold 1995). Contemporary research, however, has found that crime control policy has been used effectively by both parties (Marion 1997;Oliver 2003a) and a number of quantitative studies have found no support for the hypothesis that crime is a Republican-owned issue (Marion and Farmer 2003;Oliver 1998Oliver , 2001Oliver , 2002Oliver , 2003aOliver and Barlow 2005). All of these studies, however, only looked at presidential activity on crime between the parties in a general sense.…”