Crime, capital punishment, and knowledge: are criminal justice majors better informed than other majors about crime and capital punishment?

This paper is part of presentation made at the 1999 American Society of Criminology Annual meeting in Toronto, Canada.

Abstract

Criminal justice agencies increasingly seek better educated employees, who should have greater knowledge of criminal justice issues. This has lead to an increase in the number of students majoring in criminal justice. This study employed a non-random, convenience sampling design of 730 college students of various ranks and majors at a mid-sized, 4-year public university in Michigan to determine what impact a criminal justice education had on knowledge of the death penalty and other criminal justice facts compared to students in other majors. It was found that there was a difference between criminal justice majors and other majors in knowledge about crime and capital punishment; however, the difference was neither widespread nor striking as the authors had hoped.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Janet Lambert for editing and proofreading the paper. Additionally, the authors thank Matthew Call and Julie Mack, Criminal Justice graduate students at Ferris State University, for their assistance in collecting the survey data. Finally, the authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions.

Notes

This paper is part of presentation made at the 1999 American Society of Criminology Annual meeting in Toronto, Canada.

1 Present address: Integrated Studies, Utah Valley State College, Orem, UT 84058.