The effects of self-classification on perceptions of security levels and civil liberties among a sample of college students

ABSTRACT

This study uses a survey of undergraduate college students at two schools in the eastern United States to investigate whether how they self-classify (e.g. choice of major and political view) effects their levels of trust in the government and how safe they feel in regard to a terror attack. We found that while all of the self-classification variables had an effect on trust in the government, none of them had an effect on feelings of safety.

KEYWORDS:

• Civil liberties
• security
• terrorism
• regression analysis

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr Dominic DelliCarpini, Dean of Community Engagement at York College of Pennsylvania, and Dr Mary Ligon, Chair of the Behavioral Sciences Department at York College of Pennsylvania, for their assistance with this project. The authors would also like to thank the reviewers for their helpful and constructive feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

P. J. Verrecchia is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at York College of Pennsylvania. His research interests include terrorism, juvenile justice, gender issues in criminal justice, and restorative justice.

Nicole Hendrix is an Associate Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Radford University. Her research has bridged the academic and professional realms within the field of criminal justice and included projects examining police use of force, firearms and policy behaviors, and media depictions of crime and justice issues.

Notes

1. The specific questions asked can be found in Appendix.

2. Scores on the index run from 8 (strongly disagree with all of the questions) to 40 (strongly agree with all of the questions).

3. Scores on the index run from 4 (strongly disagree with all of the questions) to 20 (strongly agree with all of the questions).

4. No control variables were utilized to keep the model simple.

5. This was included because one week after the 11 September 2001 attacks, anthrax was sent to members of the media and federal government through the mail.