PERCEIVED GROUP THREAT AND PUNITIVE ATTITUDES INRUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES

Darren Wheelock*, Olga Semukhina and Nicolai N. Demidov

Extant research has examined the link between the group threat thesis and different forms of socialcontrol including the public desire to punish criminals. The group threat thesis posits that crimecontrol, and public support for it, stems from conflict and competition between groups over scarcesocial resources such as jobs and education. Groups in power utilize crime control to manage andsuppress groups that pose a threat to these resources. This perspective has been important in shapingcriminological understandings of punishment; however, much of it has focused solely on inter-groupconflict in the United States andWestern Europe. This study expands the group threat lens by testingwhether dynamics of group conflict and threat fuel the desire to punish in Russia. We find that,similarly to the United States and Western Europe, perceived threat is an important predictor of thedesire to punish for Russian respondents. The findings draw attention to the need for further in-vestigation of group threat theory in a comparative context.

Keywords: punitive attitudes, group threat, comparative criminology

Introduction

The group threat thesis informs a wealth of criminological research concerning socialcontrol in the United States and Western Europe. The underlying rationale of the groupthreat perspective is that social groups compete over scarce social resources such as em-ployment, education and housing, to name a few, and dominant social groups possess theupper hand in their distribution. In this way, this theoretical paradigm emphasizes a zero-sum relationship in which one more job for a member of a minority group is perceived asone fewer employment opportunity for a dominant groupmember. To wit, majority groupmembers seek to protect their prerogatives to limited resources by utilizing different typesof social control to manage and control groups perceived as threatening. Even thoughthere are import distinctions between inter-group conflict in the United States and West-ern Europe (African Americans generally constitute the threatening minority group intheUnited States, while immigrant groups tends to comprise themost consistentminoritythreat in Western Europe), the fundamental logic remains similar (Unnever and Cullen2010). There is considerable empirical support that the group threat thesis has a signif-icant impact on crime-control policy in the United States (Behrens et al. 2003; Earl et al.2003; Eitle et al. 2002; Greenberg andWest 2001; Jacobs and Carmichael 2001; Jacobs andHelms 1999; Liska et al. 1985; Myers 1990).

* Department of Social and Cultural Sciences, Marquette University, 363 Lalumiere Hall, Milwaukee, WI 53201, USA; darren.wheelock@marquette.edu; Volgograd Law Academy of Ministry of Interior Affairs of Russia, Volgograd, Russia.

�TheAuthor 2011. Published byOxfordUniversity Press on behalf of theCentre for Crime and Justice Studies (ISTD).All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com

doi:10.1093/bjc/azr053 BRIT. J. CRIMINOL. (2011) 51, 937–959Advance Access publication 22 July 2011

937

by guest on Novem

ber 3, 2011http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/

Dow

nloaded from

A related line of work has investigated whether public support for harsh criminal pun-ishment is also fuelled by conflict between majority and minority groups. Select studieshave linked the desire to punish to aggregate and perceived measures of group threat.For example, research has shown that the percentage of African Americans in a county isa significant predictor of support for capital punishment (Baumer et al. 2003). Otherresearch has shown perceptions of threatening group condition punitive attitudes andthese attitudes reflect the understanding that crime control’s purpose is to control andmanage threatening groups in the United States (King and Wheelock 2007). Much ofthis literature, however, has focused on inter-group dynamics in the United States andWestern Europe. We contend that, when examining social control and punitive atti-tudes, Russia and the United States are compelling cases for examination.Despite the increasing attention that the group threat perspective has garnered in

recent explanations of social control in Western Europe and the United States, the roleof inter-group conflict in shaping social control in Russia remains largely unexamined.Consequently, scholars know little about social control and public desires to punish lawviolators in a country that shares many important qualities with the US crime-controlsystem. Even though Russia does not have the same lengthy imprisonment sentences asthe United States (Terrill 2009), it continues to use imprisonment as the leading sen-tencing practice. According to the World Prison Brief (2011), the estimated incarcer-ated population in Russia in 2011 is 577 individuals per 100,000 in the population,second only to the United States, with 743 inmates per 100,000 in the population. Ratesof incarceration in Western-European countries do not even approach the rate of in-carceration in the United States or Russia. For example, the United Kingdom currentlydetains 154 inmates per 100,000. OtherWestern-European countries such as France andGermany have even lower rates of incarceration (96 inmates and 85 inmates per 100,000in the population, respectively) (World Prison Brief 2011). Since 1992, Russia and theUnited States have been among world leaders in both absolute numbers in the inmatepopulation and rates of incarceration (World Prison Brief 2011).1

In this comparative study, we seek to examine whether indicators for perceived groupthreat can account for variation in punitive attitudes in Russia as it does in the UnitedStates. We feel that comparing the views of Americans and Russians provides an oppor-tunity to explore sources of public support for penal sanctions in countries with com-parable levels of crime and incarceration. Comparing American and Western Europeancrime-control practices and punitive attitudes is problematic because they differ dramat-ically in these regards. For example, one notable study finds that the rate of incarcer-ation for the United States greatly diverges from the incarceration rates of 14 otherWestern democratic societies (Sutton 2004). Thus, the need to test whether perceivedthreat conditions support for harsh criminal punishment in the United States and Rus-sia is clear.Russia offers a compelling comparative case for a number of factors. In sum, although

a more recent occurrence in Russia, both the United States and Russia possess minoritypopulations that are viewed as being the primary source of crime and social disorder(Tyuryukanova and Kostyrya 2008). Economic inequality, in-migration and other factors

1According to the World Prison Brief (2011), in 1992, the absolute number of the prison population in the United States was1,295,150 individuals or 501 inmates per 100,000 individuals. In comparison, the prison population in 1992 in Russia was 722,636individuals or 487 inmates per 100,000 individuals.

WHEELOCK ET AL.

938

by guest on Novem

ber 3, 2011http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/

Dow

nloaded from

related to inter-group conflict are also prevalent in both countries. Both the UnitedStates and Russia are also among world leaders in the number of homicides per capita.2

This is not to suggest that the US and Russian criminal justice systems are similar—rather, they differ markedly. For example, Savelsberg (1994) claims that the politicalstructure in the United States, which centres on elected officials and their constituen-cies, makes penal policy decisions vulnerable to the influences of shifting public opin-ion. Conversely, the Russian criminal justice system is extremely centralized, with all itsinstitutions controlled by the federal government (Curtis 1996). In contrast to theUnited States, almost all criminal justice officials in Russia are appointed and the impactof public opinion on penal policies tends to be indirect (Terrill 2009).The two criminal justice systems also differ in that, unlike the United States’ relatively

stable criminal justice system, the Russian justice system has been in tremendous tran-sition over the last 20 years. The Soviet criminal justice system was created primarily toprotect interests of the state, while human rights were often neglected and sacrificed forthe greater good (Berman 1966; Shelley 1996). Since the fall of the Soviet Union in1991, the Russian Federation has attempted to foster a more democratic criminal justiceinstitution (Muniz 2004; Robertson 2004; Shelley 1999). These efforts at legal reform,however, have had limited success, as the Russian criminal justice system continues tostruggle with government corruption and abuses of power (INDEM 2005; Inshakov2007; Rose and Mishler 2010). As in many other post-Soviet countries, the Russian crim-inal justice system also lacks reliable guarantees for police accountability, political inde-pendence of the court system and transparent decision making. The failure of theRussian Government to address these problems (Salagaev et al. 2008)3 has led to highlevels of public dissatisfaction and distrust of the criminal justice system amongst Rus-sians (Gerber and Mendelson 2008; Reynolds et al. 2008). In contrast, the United Statesranks in the top 25 per cent among all countries in their efforts to combat state corrup-tion.4 These contextual differences are important for our comparison and will beaccounted for in our data analysis in which we test for the possible influence of trustin the criminal justice system on punitive attitudes in the Russian data.This study also sheds light on punitive attitudes in Russia, as research in this area still

remains in its nascent stages. The few studies concerning this topic tend to view Russiansociety as ethnically homogenous (McAuley andMacdonald 2007; Zvekic 1997), therebyoverlooking the possible role of group threat in shaping punitive attitudes. For example,McAuley and Macdonald (2007) fail to discuss the ethnic backgrounds of the respond-ents in their study of Russian punitive attitudes and the juvenile justice system. Inves-tigating the desire to punish in Russia provides an opportunity to test the salience ofinter-group conflict as a significant factor in Russian public attitudes. Little is knownabout whether crime control and public support for it are fuelled by conflict and com-petition over scarce resources outside of the United States and Western Europe. Thisstudy advances efforts to understand the forces that shape punitive attitudes, especiallyin contexts not typically considered in criminological scholarship. To examine the role

2According to the Eleventh UN Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (UN 2008), the United Stateshas 5.2 murders per 100,000 population and Russia has 14.2 per 100,000 population.

3Russia ranked 157 out of 178 in the Perception Corruption Index by Transparency International in 2010, available online atwww.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2010/results.

4The United States ranked 22 out of 189 in the Perception Corruption Index by Transparency International in 2010, availableonline at www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2010/results.

PERCEIVED GROUP THREAT AND PUNITIVE ATTITUDES IN RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES

939

by guest on Novem

ber 3, 2011http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/

Dow

nloaded from

of group threat in the US and Russian contexts, we analyse two datasets, one from eachrespective country.

Group Threat in the United States and Western Europe

This study draws from Liska’s (1992) seminal work, which emphasizes the role of socialthreat in shaping various forms of social control, including policing, lynches, mentalhealth and welfare. The social threat perspective emphasizes the role of social elitesin supporting laws and policies that protect their economic interests from any groupthat poses a threat to their position. Liska states that ‘The threat hypothesis assumesthat social control is a response of elites, authorities, and majorities to acts, people,and distributions of people deemed to be threatening to their interests’ (Liska 1992:174). Forms of social control, including public opinion regarding law violators, are toolsfor the elite to suppress and manage the poor and less fortunate. By examining thegroups that constitute a threat in Russia, this research answers Liska’s call for researchthat ‘might seriously address the question: who and what are threatening and who andwhat are threatened’ (Liska 1992: 176). A related line of work commonly referred to asthe group threat perspective offers additional insight on the role of inter-group conflictin social control and punitive attitudes.Group threat theory posits that prejudice and inter-group hostility are largely reac-

tions to perceived threats by other groups (Blalock 1967; Blumer 1958). Dominantgroups fear that subordinate groups will upset existing social arrangements by encroach-ing on their advantaged social position, thus spurring feelings of prejudice and out-group hostility. Accordingly, prejudice and discrimination should be more prevalentwhere sources of threat are highest, notably when and where the minority populationis relatively large and competition for limited social resources is high (Blalock 1967;Quillian 1995). In other words, ‘The greater the sense of threat to [the dominantgroup’s] prerogatives, the more likely are members of the dominant group to expressprejudice against threatening outsiders’ (Quillian 1995: 588).Originally developed as a theory of prejudice and discrimination, the group threat

hypothesis informs a wealth of research on formal social control and criminal punish-ment, including work on arrest (Eitle et al. 2002; Liska et al. 1985), incarceration (Green-berg andWest 2001; Jacobs and Carmichael 2001;Myers 1990), policemobilization (Earlet al. 2003), criminal justice expenditures (Jacobs and Helms 1999), felon disenfran-chisement legislation (Behrens et al. 2003), police use of deadly force (Jacobs andO’Brien 1998), hate-crime enforcement (King et al. 2009) and punitive attitudes(Baumer et al. 2003; Unnever and Cullen 2010). Additional work finds that areas withlarger or growing minority populations experience greater support for right-wing po-litical candidates (Giles and Buckner 1993; Knigge 1998) and negative attitudes towardsminorities (Quillian 1995; Quillian and Pager 2001; Tyler and Boeckmann 1997). Insum, individuals support punitive crime-control measures because they understandthem as controlling threatening groups.Literature germane to group threat and individual level attitudes covers an array of

studies that examine the relationship between aggregate group threat measures andperceptions of crime and punishment. Individuals residing in areas with a higher con-centration of African Americans are more apt to perceive higher crime rates (Quillianand Pager 2001) and support capital punishment (Baumer et al. 2003). Related work has

WHEELOCK ET AL.

940

by guest on Novem

ber 3, 2011http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/

Dow

nloaded from

found that African Americans, especially black men, are overwhelmingly perceived asthe primary source of crime and violence in theUnited States (Mendelberg 2001; Peffleyet al. 1997; Russell 1998). Quillian and Pager (2001) have found that, net of actual crimelevels, the percentage of black people, especially black males of a given neighbourhood,is an important predictor of whether white respondents view a neighbourhood as havinghigh levels of crime. In a similar study, Chiricos, Hogan and Gertz (1997) found thatactual racial composition of neighbourhoods had little effect on whether white respond-ents reported fearing crime in their neighbourhood. They found instead that respond-ents’ perceptions of neighbourhood racial composition had a significant impact onwhether they reported fearing crime. This body of work shows that, at least in the UnitedStates, African Americans are understood as a clear and continual source of threat topublic safety.Rather than focusing solely on the views of African Americans in the United States, we

expand our examination of perceived threat to also include views of immigrants in Rus-sia and their role in conditioning public support for harsh penal sanctions. Investigatingindividual punitive attitudes is important because, as previouslymentioned, the desire topunish law violators is connected to aggregate (Baumer et al. 2003) and individual meas-ures (King and Wheelock 2007) of group threat in the United States. In the Americancontext, public sentiments of penal sanctions have contributed to current trends in pe-nal policy marked by high levels of incarceration and expanded criminal justice super-vision (Savelsberg 1994). While criminal justice systems outside the United States maynot be as responsive to public opinion, indentifying the sources of punitive attitudes stillsheds light onto whether inter-group conflict informs public understandings of crimeand formal sanctions.We specifically point to two potential sources of perceivedminority group threat. First,

drawing from extant work on crime perceptions, minorities may be perceived as posinga threat to personal safety. Black people, in particular, are frequently associated with crimeand violence (Chiricos et al. 2001; Mendelberg 2001; Peffley et al. 1997; Quillian andPager 2001). Support for harsh penal policies is greater in areas with a higher concen-tration of minorities (Baumer et al. 2003) and individuals appear to associate the pres-ence of minorities with elevated rates of crime (Chiricos et al. 2001; Quillian and Pager2001). Second, group threat theory suggests dominant groups seek to maintain controlof valued social resources, while minority groups represent potential competition (Bla-lock 1967; Quillian 1995). Implicit in this argument is that dominant groups can de-crease the threat of minority group competition for social resources (such as accessto the labour market) through social control and criminal punishment. We build onthis argument and suggest perceptions of threat concerning social resources should also in-crease punitive sentiments. While all of this work is based on American data, groupthreat research has begun to consider the salience of inter-group conflict in shapingsocial control and attitudes towards minority groups outside of the United States.Efforts to examine group threat outside the United States often focus on immigrants

as the primary source of minority threat. This body of work has found that the concen-tration of immigrants has an influence on prejudice against immigrants (Meulemanet al. 2009; Quillian 1995), labour market outcomes (Granato 2009), heightened levelsof crime control (Pager 2008), greater resistance to inter-ethnic marriages (Tolsma et al.2008) and immigrant perceived threat and derogation (Schlueter et al. 2008). Addi-tional work has also found that Jews in pre-Second World War Romania (Brustein

PERCEIVED GROUP THREAT AND PUNITIVE ATTITUDES IN RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES

941

by guest on Novem

ber 3, 2011http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/

Dow

nloaded from

and King 2004) and Muslims among the Dutch (Velasco-Gonzalez et al. 2008) also con-stitute a threat to majority group prerogatives among European survey respondents. Onbalance, the evidence demonstrates that immigrant groups comprise a key source ofthreat for group threat research conducted outside the United States. Less is knownabout group threat and its implications for social control in Russia.

Russian Punitive Attitudes

As previously mentioned, Russia provides a unique case for comparative analysis in thatit sharesmany important characteristics with theUnited States. Comparative studies thatinclude Eastern European countries demonstrate more severe penal attitudes thanWestern European countries (Kesteren 2009; Krajewski 2009). However, evidence con-cerning the predictors of penal attitudes in Eastern Europe in general and Russia inparticular is scant at best. Most of the data on Russian punitiveness have been summa-rized as descriptive reports provided by various survey agencies in Russia.These reports can be divided into studies on public support for the death penalty and

public support for other punitive policies. Despite the official moratorium that Presi-dent Yeltsin placed on state executions in 1997, public support for the death penaltyis traditionally strong among Russians. The leading Russian survey research centres(WCIOM5 and FOM6) found that, in 1989, over 60 per cent of respondents supportedthe death penalty (FOM 1989).7 The fall of the Soviet Union had little impact on theseattitudes, as only 7.5 per cent of Russians reported being in favour of abolishing thedeath penalty and over 70 per cent of the sample maintained full support for the deathpenalty or expanding its use (WCIOM 1992). In 1997, 70 per cent of survey respondentsdisagreed with the decision to place a moratorium on the death penalty and continuedto favour it over other alternatives (FOM 2001). This trend continued through the late1990s and early 2000s, with only 10–20 per cent of the population supporting the ab-olition of the death penalty (FOM 1999; WCIOM 2001). Related research investigatesRussian perceptions of how best to lower crime rates. Since 1989, Russian surveyrespondents have consistently listed lenient sentencing policies as one of the major rea-sons for a growing crime problem (WCIOM 1989). This pattern holds when askingrespondents about juvenile crimes, minor offences, government corruption or drug-re-lated crimes (FOM 2002; INDEM 2005; Levada 2007). Even though these studies do notexplain the consistently high levels of punitive attitudes among Russians, they clearlydemonstrate that, in the last 20 years, Russians continue to hold harsh punitive attitudesdespite dramatic shifts in the country’s economic and political systems. We posit that,similarly to the United States, which shares a public with a strong and sustained desire topunish, the group threat theory can partially account for this trend among Russians.

Group Threat in Russia

While the United States and Russia share many characteristics such as their high rates ofimprisonment and a public that seeks to increase criminal punishment, there are

5Russian abbreviations for All-Russian Center for Public Opinion.6Russian abbreviation for Foundation of Research on Public Opinion.7A full citation list, which includes the full list of Russian surveys discussed in this research, is available on request from the authors.

WHEELOCK ET AL.

942

by guest on Novem

ber 3, 2011http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/

Dow

nloaded from

important population differences. For instance, the Russian population is far more ra-cially homogeneous, consisting of 85 per cent Slavs (Curtis 1996). This is not to suggestthatminority populations are absent, but rather that Russia does not have a racialminoritypopulation that resembles theUnited States’. Existing survey data show that Russians tendto identify two ethnic groups in particular as posing a threat to the majority group—thesegroups are vaguely defined as ‘North Caucasians’ and ‘Central Asians’ (Zircon 2002).8

The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 created new patterns of migration withinthe former Soviet republics. The rapid development of the free market economy in thelate 1990s led to high levels of economic inequality across many Russian republics—some prospered and quickly developed, while others experienced considerable eco-nomic hardship. Due to its vast natural resources, however, Russia became economicallystable by the early 2000s and this renewed economic prosperity attracted labourmigrants from the less prosperous former Soviet republics. Migrants looking for workmost commonly hail from two general areas: republics in the North Caucasus (Armenia,Azerbaijan and Georgia)9 and the so-called Central Asian republics (Kazakhstan, Turk-menistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan). Official Russian statistics indicatethat, between 1997 and 2008, an average of 200,000 labour residents from these coun-tries migrated to Russia annually. The residents of the North Caucasus and Central Asianrepublics constituted an absolute majority (70 per cent) of all immigrants (GKS 2010b).In the post-Soviet era, Russian views of ethnic minorities and immigrants from the

North Caucasus and Central Asian republics have been marked by prejudice and antip-athy (Gilinskiy 2000). Russian survey respondents indicate feelings of hostility and irri-tation towards immigrants from the North Caucasus and Central Asian republics. Evenmore central to our argument, since the early 2000s, Russian respondents repeatedlyreported fearing immigrants from both the North Caucasus and Central Asia republicsand blaming them for unemployment, depletion of social welfare, high crime rates andother social problems in the Russian Federation (FOM 2005; 2008; Zircon 2002). Thisfear has translated into public support for such measures as restriction of the immi-grants’ movement within the country, restriction of their residency in certain areasand even deportation of certain ethnic minorities (FOM 2008). Thus, for the purposesof this study, two broadly defined groups of immigrants in Russia from the North Cau-casus and Central Asia republics were chosen to measure the effect of perceived groupthreat on penal attitudes.Identifying the precise source of threat for North Caucasus and Central Asian immi-

grants is outside the scope of this article. However, evidence suggests that these twoimmigrant groups are understood in very stark ways. Since 1999, residents of NorthCaucasus were involved in a number of terrorist attacks on Russian territories(Bhattacharji 2010). While most of these attacks were committed by residents of Chech-nya, the broader classification of North Caucasians has been directly connected to terror-ist activity, which has become an especially potent source of threat in many countries(Abdulaev and Saradzhyan 2008). Therefore, we expect to find great concern aboutNorthCaucasus immigrants and the threat they pose to public safety.

8For example, 31 per cent of all respondents listed as either ‘North Caucasians’ or ‘Central Asians’ as their main source of ‘un-desirable immigrants’ who irritate them, compared to only 3 per cent who listed other ethnic minorities in this category.

9Some residents of republics within the Russian Federation, such as Chechnya, Ossetia and Dagestan, are also commonly referredto as North Caucasians.

PERCEIVED GROUP THREAT AND PUNITIVE ATTITUDES IN RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES

943

by guest on Novem

ber 3, 2011http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/

Dow

nloaded from

Data and Variables

This project utilizes two datasets for comparative analysis. American punitive attitudeswere measured by the American Mosaic Survey, a national telephone survey of adultsresiding in the United States conducted in 2003. Data on Russian punitive attitudes werecollected in a special study conducted in the Volgograd region of Russia in October of2009 by the Volgograd Law Academy. Even though the survey data were collected sixyears apart, we do not consider this a methodological flaw. Key indicators of threatand punitive attitudes have been remarkably stable in the United States over the pastseveral decades. For example, support for capital punishment in the past 20 years hasgenerally hovered between 65 and 75 per cent (Barkan and Cohn 2010). Views of racialminorities in the United States are also stable, as indicated by GSS data that show that,since the early 1990s, views of African Americans and inequality have only shifted by 1 or2 per cent (Hunt 2007). In our view, it is far more vital to get the most recent datapossible for Russian respondents as the desire to punish and views of immigrant groupscould have fluctuated significantly over the past decade due to the instability of theRussian criminal justice system and the recent influx of immigrants.The Russian survey contained 30 items that focused on views of immigrants and views

of the Russian criminal justice system. These data were collected via face-to-face inter-views and the rate of participation was estimated at 73 per cent. Those individuals whorefused to participate or were unavailable after multiple contact attempts were replacedwith another individual utilizing the same sampling methodology. A multi-stage system-atic quota sampling method was employed to sample the Volgograd Region’s popula-tion. On 1 January 2010, the region’s population was estimated to be 2,589,887. It is oneof the largest southern agricultural regions in the Russian Federation, and 78 per cent ofits territory, consisting of 112,900 square kilometres, is used for agricultural purposes(GKS 2010a).10 Table 1 shows comparative demographics on gender, age and educationfor both the Russian population and the Russian sample. The results demonstrate fewsignificant differences among the sample of population; thus, we consider the data to begenerally representative of the Russian Federation as a whole.The Russian sample includes 526 respondents. The sampling quotas were calculated us-

ing official demographic information from the Russian State Statistical Department. Theproportion of the urban/rural population, gender, geographical crime rate areas and agewereusedtodevelopthequotaelements.Crimeratesbygeographicalunitwereestimatedbycounting the reported crime incidents and classifying them as low, medium or high.On the other hand, the American data come from the AmericanMosaic Survey (AMS),

which is a national telephone survey of adults residing in theUnited States. The survey wasconducted in 2003 using random digit dialling and Computer Assisted Telephone Inter-viewing (CATI). The University of Wisconsin Survey Center administered the survey to2,081 adults during the summer of 2003. The survey was designed to gather data on atti-tudes about race, religion, politics and perceptions of the criminal justice system, as well asrespondents’ background information. The survey administrators randomly selectedhouseholds, and then respondents were randomly selected within households.

10Analyses not included in this paper show that the demographic characteristics (age, gender and education level) and crime ratesof the Volgograd population do not differ significantly from other regions of Russia. These additional analyses are available uponrequest from the authors.

WHEELOCK ET AL.

944

by guest on Novem

ber 3, 2011http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/

Dow

nloaded from

The survey response rate was 36 per cent, which compares favourably with the responseratesachievedbymostnationalRDD-based studies.11Theresponserate for thepresentdatafallsbelowthattypicallyachievedbytheGeneralSocialSurvey(GSS),althoughpriorworkonresponsebias indicates fewsystematicdifferencesbetweenhigherresponserates(50–60percent) and RDD surveys, achieving rates of between 27 and 36 per cent with respect to de-mographic and attitudinal indicators (Keeter et al. 2000). The different survey methodol-ogies may be responsible for higher participation rates in the Russian sample. While thiscould pose a concern, we do not expect a serious problem of selection bias in this case be-causebothsampleswerefoundtobegenerallyrepresentativeofthepopulationsfromwhichtheyweredrawn.Furthermore,ourAmericandatacomparewellwithothernational surveysthat were administered in person, such as the GSS on responses to a selection of a demo-graphic, belief and behavioural measures.12 Table 2 displays basic demographic character-istics of the US population compared to the American survey.Our analysis of the American data is based on a sub-sample of 2,081 survey respond-

ents (the 530 cases in the regression models are the final sample of white respondentswho answered questions concerning African Americans).13 The Russian survey itemswere closely translated from the American Mosaic study, except when examples had

TABLE 1 Russian population and sample characteristics

Russian Federation (%) Russian sample (%)

Age17–29 25.3 32.730–44 25.2 28.345–59 28.3 26.160–74 14.8 1275 plus 6.4 1

GenderMale 46.6 48.5Female 53.4 51.5

EducationLess than high school 23.1 3.5High school 17.5 38.8Technical school 39.8 25.9Some college 3.1 3.6College degree 15.7 28.3Graduate school 0.3 3.5

Total 117,611,037 526

Age and education percentages calculated only for the population over 17 years of age.

11 The Council on Market and Opinion Research (CMOR) maintains an ongoing study of response rates using calculation meth-ods consistent with American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) definitions. Their study indicates that the currentmean response rate for RDD telephone surveys is just over 10 per cent. Additionally, the most recent American National ElectionStudy (ANES) had a response rate of 35 per cent, slightly less than the AMS response rate.

12 According to the 2000 General Social Survey, 24 per cent of the nation is Catholic, while our sample is 25.5 per cent. The AMSand GSS have comparable percentages of African American Republicans, at 14.8 and 12.1 per cent, respectively. Hence, our sampleappears consistent with the GSS, which increases our confidence that the differences we observe between the American and Russiandata do not stem from different survey methodologies.

13The American survey design entailed a split ballot, with one module of approximately half of all respondents receiving a batteryof questions on stereotypes concerning African Americans and a secondmodule inquiring about otherminority groups. Assignmentto each ballot was the function of a random draw and we found no significant differences between respondents in the two ballots.Additional in-depth information is available about the survey sampling methodologies for both datasets upon request from theauthors.

PERCEIVED GROUP THREAT AND PUNITIVE ATTITUDES IN RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES

945

by guest on Novem

ber 3, 2011http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/

Dow

nloaded from

to be changed to be culturally appropriate for Russian respondents. This research de-sign provides us with the opportunity to compare how Russians and Americans respondto closely matched survey items.Analysis of these data revealed noteworthy trends in the two samples. Both samples

had comparable proportions of male respondents (about 47–8 per cent men), buta greater percentage of Russian respondents (28 per cent) have post-graduate degreescompared to Americans (17 per cent). Russian respondents tended to be less sociallyconservative than their American counterparts, although the measure for social conser-vatism differed in each respective social context. Thus, observed differences in socialconservatism could be artificial. Russian and American respondents report similar levelsof religious fundamentalism and rates of unemployment. Finally, Russian respondentstend to be younger (40 compared to 45.3 for Americans) and (punitive attitude of 2.29)report fearing crime at levels higher than American respondents (punitive attitude of1.83). Descriptive statistics for the dependent variable for both the American and Rus-sian data are provided in Table 3.Our dependent variable, punitive attitudes, comprises three indicators. The three pu-

nitive attitude measures were combined into a single index with a standardized Cron-bach’s alpha value of 0.69 for the US sample and 0.56 for the Russian sample. Becausethe Russian alpha is lower than standard value, we conducted additional tests to validate

TABLE 2 American population and sample characteristics

US population (2003) (%) US sample (%)

Age0–19 27.9 3.920–39 28.2 36.740–59 27.4 40.4Over 60 16.5 19

GenderMale 49 47.6Female 51 52.4

Race/ethnicitya

White 67.957.2

Black 12.220.1

Hispanic/Latino 13.712.7

Other 4.910

Educationb

Less than high school 15.4 27.7High school 32 35.2Some college 17.2 8.5Associate degree 8.2 1.8College degree 17.9 16.3Graduate degree 9.3 10.5

Total 291,049,000 2,081

aThe American sample oversampled racial minorities to ensure minimum numbers of minorities for analysis. Thesedata also included a final sampling weight to adjust for this oversampling but these numbers reflect the unweightedsample estimates.bThese estimates are based on US population over 25 years of age.

WHEELOCK ET AL.

946

by guest on Novem

ber 3, 2011http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/

Dow

nloaded from

the punitiveness index.14 For our key explanatory variables, we measure perceived threat,which indicates respondents’ perceptions of African Americans (American study) orimmigrants (Russian study) as threatening. Specifically, we examine two facets of per-ceived threat, which refer to whether survey respondents (1) perceive African Ameri-cans/immigrants as threats to public order and safety, and (2) perceive AfricanAmericans/immigrants as a strain on public resources. We statistically control for a num-ber of demographic variables potentially correlated with punitive attitudes, includingrace, gender, age and education. Our analysis also controls for several political and re-ligious variables that are associated with punitiveness.

Results and Findings

Taken as a whole, the results indicate that the factors that shape the public desire topunish law violators in Russia mostly diverge from the American context, yet important

TABLE 3 Descriptive statistics for the US and Russian data

Variables Range Mean (standard deviation)

Americansample

(N) Russian sample (N)

Punitive attitudes 0–9 6.24 (2.3) 1,069 7.00 (1.6) 526Perceived threatAfrican Americans’ threat to jobs and resources 0–3 0.85 (1.01) 1,072 – –African Americans’ threat to public order 0–1 0.15 (0.36) 1,090 – –Central Asian immigrants’ threat to public order 0–1 – – 0.18 (0.38) 526Central Asian immigrants’ threats to jobs and resources 0–3 – – 1.87 (0.94) 526North Caucasus immigrants’ threat to public order 0–1 – – 0.37 (0.48) 526North Caucasus immigrants’ threat to jobs and resources 0–3 – – 1.87 (1.0) 526Demographic and politicalIncome 1–8/1–6 5.44 (1.88) 1,057 2.99 (1.3) 526Age 18–91/19–61 45.3 (16.35)1,085 39.9 (10.24) 526Male 0–1 47.3% (0.5) 1,184 48.5% (0.5) 526Post-graduate degree 0–1 0.17 (0.35) 1,184 0.28 (0.45) 526Social conservative 0–1 0.33 (0.47) 1,174 0.26 (0.44) 526Economic conservative 0–1 0.44 (0.5) 1,182 – –Religious fundamentalism 0–2 1.13 (0.65) 1,153 1.19 (0.51) 526Unemployed 0–1 0.04 (0.19) 1,181 0.05 (0.22) 526Dummy variable for United Russian Party 0–1 – – 0.55 (0.5) 526Crime-relatedDummy variable for victimization 0–1 – – 0.23 (0.42) 526Fear of crime 1–4 1.83 (1.03) 1,102 2.29 (1.11) 526

14While the alpha value for the American punitive index is remarkably similar to Tyler and Boeckmann’s (1997: 245) work, theindex for the Russian data is lower. To validate the Russian punitiveness scale, we conducted both exploratory and confirmatoryfactor analyses (EFA and CFA) of three dependent variables in Russian sample. The results of EFA indicate that a single factor wasextracted through the principal component analysis. Results of CFA demonstrate that all three indicators of the punitiveness scaleare significant at the 0.05 level and havemedium to high regression loadings. Therefore, we conclude that, despite a low alpha value,the punitiveness index is an adequate measurement instrument for the Russian data. The results of the confirmatory analysis areavailable upon request from the authors.

PERCEIVED GROUP THREAT AND PUNITIVE ATTITUDES IN RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES

947

by guest on Novem

ber 3, 2011http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/

Dow

nloaded from

similarities are present. Univariate statistics in Table 3 indicate a number of interestingpatterns between Russian and American respondents. The data show that Russians (pu-nitive attitude of 7.00) tend to be more punitive than Americans (6.24).15 This is note-worthy because the crime-control policies in the United States tend to be even morepunitive than those in Russia. The United States has a higher rate of incarcerationand Russia has placed a moratorium on the use of capital punishment while the UnitedStates continues to execute prisoners. As previously mentioned, however, American pub-lic opinion tends to have a far greater impact on its crime-control practices than Russianpublic opinion. It could be the case that, while American crime-control policy alreadymirrors American punitive attitudes, Russian punitive attitudes reflect a public desire fora more punitive criminal justice system.On average, comparable proportions of Russian respondents viewed Central Asian

immigrants as posing a greater threat to public safety (18 per cent) as Americanrespondents who reported viewing African Americans in the same light (15 per cent).However, more than twice the proportion of Russian respondents viewed immigrantsfrom the North Caucasus republic in these terms (37 per cent). The remarkable differ-ence between perceived public threat posed by Central Asians and North Caucasianslikely stems from the connection of North Caucasians to terrorist attacks in Russia. Rel-ative to the American data, Russian respondents were more likely to report viewingimmigrants as a threat to jobs and economic resources. Descriptive data also show thatboth Central Asians and North Caucasians are viewed as equally threatening in regardsto their use of social resources(52 per cent for Central Asians and 52.5 per cent for NorthCaucasians accordingly). The means for perceived economic threat for Russians (puni-tive attitude of 1.87 for Central Asian and 1.87 for North Caucasian immigrants) aremore than double themean for perceived economic threat for Americans (0.85).16 Mea-surement differences with the income variable prohibit comparing Russian and Amer-ican reported income levels.

Bivariate Analysis

The bivariate analysis reinforces the idea that there are both similarities and differencesbetween the Russian and American contexts with regards to perceived threat and thepublic desire to punish law violators. Analysis of the American data shows two importanttrends. First, white respondents who agree with the sentiment that African Americansare more of an economic burden to welfare and other social programmes than othergroups are more likely to support harsh criminal punishment measures. Figure 1 shows

15Because we analyse data from two different samples, we are unable to directly test whether these means differ significantly. Wedid, however, conduct one-sample t-tests using 7 and 6.24 as test statistics and found, in both cases, that the punitive attitude meanfor the Russian data was significantly different from 6.24 (the Americanmean) and the punitive attitudemean for the American datawas significantly different from 7.00 (the Russian mean).

16We emphasize caution when comparing means for some of these variables because we employed a mean imputation techniquefor ‘don’t know’ responses for the Russian data but excluded the ‘don’t know’ cases from all analysis for the American data. Weattempted to standardize as many of the variables included in the analysis as possible but, since the Russian data had fewer cases tostart, we were reluctant to exclude the ‘don’t know’ responses. Furthermore, the results of the analysis remain unchanged whetherwe excluded these cases or relied on mean imputation but excluding them actually yields higher mean scores for punitiveness andperceived economic threat. Thus, the mean imputation technique provides more conservative estimates of the difference betweenAmerican and Russian punitive attitudes and perceived threat.

WHEELOCK ET AL.

948

by guest on Novem

ber 3, 2011http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/

Dow

nloaded from

a clear linear relationship between the two variables in that each increasing level of per-ceived economic threat corresponds with a higher mean punitive attitude score.White American survey respondents who reported strongly disagreeing with the no-

tion that African Americans pose a greater economic threat than other groups scorednearly two points (1.88 on a scale of 0 to 9) lower on the punitive attitude index thanrespondents who strongly agreed with this statement. Second, white American respond-ents who reported agreeing with the idea that African Americans pose a greater threat topublic safety than other groups are also more likely to hold more punitive attitudes.Figure 2 shows that respondents who hold this view, on average, score one full pointhigher on the punitive scale than respondents who reported that African Americansposed less of a threat, the same as other groups or were unsure. In sum, the Americandata show a clear positive relationship between perceived threat and punitive attitudes.The results of the bivariate analysis for the Russian data also show two primary trends.

For both immigrant groups, Russian respondents who reported strongly disagreeing withthe notion that immigrants from the Central Asian regions (7.32) and the North Cau-casus (7.22) divert resources have higher mean punitive attitude scores than respond-ents who somewhat disagreed (6.78 and 6.66) and even somewhat agreed (7.01 and6.87). Yet, Russian respondents who strongly agreed that immigrants divert public resour-ces scored highest on the punitive attitudes (Figure 3 shows 7.46 for Central Asians and7.66 for North Caucasians).Russian respondents who report agreeing with the notion that immigrants from the

North Caucasus (7.32) and fromCentral Asia (7.28) pose a greater threat to public safetythan other groups only score marginally higher on mean punitive attitudes thanrespondents who reported that these immigrant groups posed less of a threat or thesame as other groups (Figure 4 indicates 7.11 for immigrants from the Central Asianregion and 7.03 for immigrants from the North Caucasus republic).In addition, correlation tests indicate that the bivariate relationship for views of Cen-

tral Asian immigrant groups as a threat to public safety and the punitive attitude index isnon-significant (r = 0.044). While the bivariate relationship between views of North Cau-casus immigrants as a threat to public safety and the punitive attitude index is statistically

FIG. 1 American Punitive Attitudes by African Americans Divert Resources

PERCEIVED GROUP THREAT AND PUNITIVE ATTITUDES IN RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES

949

by guest on Novem

ber 3, 2011http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/

Dow

nloaded from

FIG. 2 American puntive Attitudes by Perceptions that African American are a Threat to Public Safety

FIG. 3 Russian Punitive Attitudes by Perceptions Immigrants From the Central Asian Region and

North Caucasus Divert Resources

FIG. 4 Russian Punitive Attitudes by Perceptions that Immigrants From Central Asian Region and

North Caucasus are a Threat to Public Safety

WHEELOCK ET AL.

950

by guest on Novem

ber 3, 2011http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/

Dow

nloaded from

significant (p < 0.05), the magnitude of the correlation coefficient (r = 0.096) suggestsa weak relationship.17 Thus, preliminary analysis shows that perceived threat to publicsafety of either immigrant group does not share a robust bivariate relationship with Rus-sian punitive attitudes.The figures for the Russian data suggest a possible curvilinear relationship between

views of immigrants as economic threats and the desire to punish offenders. The cor-relation coefficients for both are weak tomodest (Central Asian regions, 0.098; p< 0.05,and North Caucasus, 0.173; p< 0.01) but positive, thus being consistent with tenants ofthe group threat thesis. Nevertheless, the relatively high mean punitive attitude scoresfor respondents who strongly disagreed with the idea that immigrant groups from theCentral Asian regions and the North Caucasus pose a threat to both social orderand resources was indeed puzzling and warrants further examination.We looked at two subsets of data in which respondents scored high on punitive atti-

tudes, but have low views of immigrants’ threat and in which respondents demonstratedlow punitive attitudes combined with high scores on threat of immigrants. We examineddemographic characteristics in the two sub-samples and found that they differed alongtwo key dimensions relative to the overall study population: income and gender.Table 4 indicates that respondents with high punitive views, but low perception of

immigrant’s threat, tend to report higher income levels, while respondents with lowpunitive attitudes and higher levels of views of immigrants’ threat tend to report lowerlevels of income. There are also more men in the subset of respondents who score highon the punitive attitude scale and low on perceived immigrant threat than in the studysample as a whole.18

We utilize two schools of thought to explain this finding. The split labour market the-ory posits that groups in direct competition over limited social resources are the mostlikely to perceive minority groups as a salient source of threat (Bonacich 1972). Withrespect to this study, immigrant groups pose an especially salient source of economicthreat to the poorest group of Russian residents, since they tend to compete for low-wage

TABLE 4 Comparative analysis of sub-samples and main Russian sample

Subsample A Highpunitive/low threat (%)

Subsample B Lowpunitive/high threat (%)

Russian sample (%)

(N = 90) (N = 18) (N = 526)

IncomeLess than 4,000 rub 1.8 23.1 12.44,000–7,000 rub 26.3 19.2 247,000–11,000 rub 35.1 34.6 3111,000–18,000 rub 28.1 15.9 21.318,000–25,000 rub 2.1 5.4 6.9Above 25,000 rub 6.6 1.8 4.4GenderMale 52.6 38.5 48.5Female 47.4 61.5 51.5

17Full correlation matrices confirm these results and are available upon request from the authors.18We estimated multivariate models with income–perceived economic threat interaction variables but neither was statistically

significant. Due to the low number of individuals in Subsamples A and B, it was impossible to run t-tests to measure the significanceof these differences.

PERCEIVED GROUP THREAT AND PUNITIVE ATTITUDES IN RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES

951

by guest on Novem

ber 3, 2011http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/

Dow

nloaded from

and unskilled jobs (Tyuryukanova 2004). Consistent with this perspective, low-incomeindividuals report the highest level of perceived threat and thus also have high levels ofpunitiveness. Alternatively, the social threat thesis suggests that the wealthiest Russianrespondents understand punitivemeasures as ameans to protect their advantaged socialposition (Liska 1992). However, respondents with higher incomes are less apt to viewthemselves in direct competition with immigrants over limited economic resources andthus report lower levels of perceived threat.19 It is noteworthy that, under the currenteconomic conditions in Russia, the income variable mitigates the effect of perceivedthreat on the punitiveness—a finding that does not hold in the American sample.The primary findings of the bivariate analysis indicate that, while there are some sim-

ilarities between the American and Russian studies, there are even more profound dif-ferences. Similarly to the American study, in which perceived economic threat is a keyexplanatory variable, views of immigrant groups as a threat to economic threat resourcesis significantly related to punitive attitudes for Russian respondents. Diverging from theAmerican study, however, this relationship does not appear to be linear, as Russianrespondents who strongly disagree with the claim that immigrants from the Central Asianregion and the North Caucasus republic are a threat to public resources and jobs havethe second highest mean punitive attitude score. To illuminate the role of perceivedthreat in shaping the desire to punish law violators, we now turn to the results ofthe regression models.

Multivariate Analysis

The results for the multivariate OLS regression models buttress many of the findingsalready discussed. Model 1 represents the full model from analysis of the American datato provide a point of comparison. Models 2, 3 and 4 refer to the Russian data sample.We again emphasize that we do not compare coefficient magnitude and rely only on

the result of the significance tests to determine the extent to which perceived threat canshape punitive attitudes in Russia. Model 1 shows a number of significant predictors.White American respondents who report taking the Bible literally tend to be more pu-nitive (0.513; p< 0.01), as do respondents who report being socially conservative (0.434;p < 0.05). Furthermore, respondents who reported voting for the Democratic Party(–0.547; p < 0.01) and with graduate schooling (–1.389; p < 0.001) also tend to holdless punitive attitudes. Perceived economic threat is positive and a statistically significantpredictor (0.618; p < 0.001) of punitive attitudes but perceived threat to public safety isnot. Moreover, in regards to the perceived economic threat measure, strongly disagree-ing that African Americans take away resources that should go to others compared tostrongly agreeing with that statement yields a difference in punitive attitudes of 2.47(0.618 � 4), over a one standard deviation change.The analysis of the Russian data shows markedly different results. Model 2 indicates

that only age is a statistically significant predictor of punitive attitudes. Older Russianrespondents tend to hold more punitive attitudes (0.014; p < 0.01). We found it sur-prising that no other demographic characteristic, political affiliation measure orcrime-related variables account for variation in punitive attitudes among Russian

19This could also support the notion of a ‘ceiling effect’ that recent group threat research has observed (Chiricos et al. 2004; Welchet al. 2011).

WHEELOCK ET AL.

952

by guest on Novem

ber 3, 2011http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/

Dow

nloaded from

respondents. Model 3 introduces the four perceived threat measures. The findings showthat, again, older respondents, on average, hold more punitive attitudes. However, an-other variable stands out—perceived economic threat by immigrants from the NorthCaucasus republic. The coefficient for this measure is both positive and statistically sig-nificant (0.327; p < 0.01), indicating that respondents who report viewing immigrantsfrom the North Caucasus republic as a threat to public resources tend to hold morepunitive attitudes. Remarkably, perceived economic threat fuels the desire to punishin both the Russian and American contexts. The same pattern holds even in model4, in which we switch perceived economic threat for a perceived economic threatsquared term to capture the possible curvilinear relationship between perceived eco-nomic threat and punitive attitudes. In this model, the squared perceived threat is againpositive and statistically significant (0.11; p < 0.001).Inadditional analysisnotpresentedhere,wealsoestimatedmultivariatemodelswith four

variables that measured public trust of criminal justice institutions (police, courts, prose-cutor’s office and secret service) and satisfaction of police. Our intent was to examine pos-sible effects of an ineffective criminal justice system on the punitive attitudes of Russians.Similar analyses were not conducted for the American data, since they do not have com-parablemeasuresof trust inthecriminal justicesystem. Intheseadditionalanalyses,noneofthe five variables were significant, which suggests that Russians’ punitive attitudes are notmerely an expressed public sentiment for a better-functioning criminal justice system.20

The squared term slightly improves the variance explained in punitiveness by the var-iables in the model, but, overall, the R2 for the Russian models are very low, especiallywhen compared to the American model. The variables for model 1 explained approx-imately 28 per cent of the variance in punitive attitudes but the comparable Russianmodel 3 explains just over 5 per cent. This is attributable to the lack of significant var-iables in the Russian models. As previously mentioned, aside from age and perceivedeconomic threat from North Caucasus immigrants, there are no other statistically sig-nificant variables. As our primary objective in this study is comparing the sources ofpunitive attitudes for the United States and Russia, we do not feel the Russian modelsare mis-specified per se, but the low variance explained certainly suggests that many ofthe factors that shape punitive attitudes in the United States are not as important in theRussian context. Furthermore, we call attention to the change in the R2 value betweenmodels 2 and 3. The baseline model (model 2) explains a paltry 2.6 per cent of thevariation, but inserting the perceived threat measures increases the proportionexplained to nearly 6 per cent (see Table 5). Otherwise stated, the perceived economicthreat from North Caucasus immigrants more than doubles the explained variation. Insum, even though the public desire to punish in the US and Russian contexts stemmostly from different factors, the perception that minority groups pose an economicthreat is an important predictor in both countries.

Conclusions and Implications

This comparative study set out to determine the applicability of the group threat per-spective to explain the strong support for harsh criminal punishment that characterizes

20The results of these additional analyses are available upon request from the authors.

PERCEIVED GROUP THREAT AND PUNITIVE ATTITUDES IN RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES

953

by guest on Novem

ber 3, 2011http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/

Dow

nloaded from

both theUnited States and Russia. It is our contention that, despite similarities in punitiveattitudes and actual punishment practices between these two countries, efforts to examinethem in a comparative context is absent from the criminological literature. Rather, com-parative research has tended to compare the United States with Western-European coun-tries that share more similar government structures and economies but drasticallydifferent levels of punishment and the corresponding public support for it.The results indicate that, even though theUnited States and Russia maintain relatively

high levels of public support for harsh criminal sanctions, the factors that condition thissupport are mostly distinct. Perceived threat measures aside, punitive attitudes are tiedto education level, political preferences and religion in the United States. In contrast,punitive attitudes in Russia are largely shaped by age. In both contexts, however, per-ceptions that minority groups pose a threat to economic resources are a key explanatoryvariable. These findings demonstrate the strength of perceived group threat as an im-portant predictor of punitive attitudes in social contexts that otherwise share few other

TABLE 5 OLS regression coefficients: punitive attitudes on threat indicators and control variables

Variables US data(N = 530) Russian data (N = 526)

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4

Perceived threatCentral Asian immigrants posea threat to public safety

0.002 (0.209) –0.032 (0.211)

Central Asian immigrants divertpublic resources

–0.118 (0.112)

Northern Caucasus immigrantspose a threat to public resources

0.130 (0.171) 0.08 (0.171)

Northern Caucasus immigrantsdivert public resources

0.327** (0.107)

African Americans pose a threatto public safety

0.221 (0.176)

African Americans divert publicresources

0.618*** (0.088)

Demographic and politicalSocial Conservative 0.434* (0.204) –0.281 (0.166) –0.296 (0.165) –0.289 (0.164)Religious fundamentalist 0.513** (0.147) 0.042 (0.138) 0.015 (0.137) –0.011 (0.137)Democrat/United Russia party –0.547** (0.189) –0.13 (0.145) –0.123 (0.144) –0.129 (0.143)Age 0.002 (0.005) 0.014** (0.005) 0.015** (0.005) 0.014** (0.005)Male –0.112 (0.178) –0.077 (0.154) –0.058 (0.154) –0.055 (0.152)Post-graduate degree –1.389*** (0.243)–0.184 (0.169) –0.147 (0.167) –0.142 (0.166)Unemployed –0.385 (0.532) –0.085 (0.327) –0.163 (0.324) –0.179 (0.321)Income 0.024 (0.064) 0.038 (0.063) 0.047 (0.063)Crime-relatedAfraid to walk alone inneighbourhood

0.015 (0.095) 0.057 (0.068) 0.068 (0.067) 0.062 (0.067)

Crime victim 0.115 (0.168) 0.039 (0.167) 0.038 (0.165)Squared termsCentral Asian immigrants divertpublic resources

–0.023 (0.032)

Northern Caucasus immigrantsdivert public resources

0.11*** (0.03)

R2 0.276 0.026 0.058 0.073N 530 526 526 526

Note: standard errors in parentheses.* p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001, all tests two-tailed.

WHEELOCK ET AL.

954

by guest on Novem

ber 3, 2011http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/

Dow

nloaded from

commonalities in the forces that shape the desire to punish. The specific type of per-ceived threat also deserves mention. In the American and Russian data, perceived threatto public safety is non-significant in all of the models. Rather, criminal punishment con-tinues to be understood as a mechanism to alleviate economic-based threat posed byminority groups (King and Wheelock 2007).This study is not without limitations. As previously mentioned, the low variance

explained in the Russian models would be a cause for concern if our sole purposewas to model Russian punitive attitudes. Future research should consider determiningthe factors that account for punitive attitudes in Russia, aside from perceived economicthreat and age. Such efforts could yield more insight on the way social context mitigatesthe influence of group threat on public support for crime-control policies. Furthermore,Russia remains an underexplored context in which to examine criminal punishment andits public support despite its similarities with the United States in those regards. Exam-ining how these social processes unfold in Russia sheds light on not only punitive attitudesin the United States, but also the salience of group threat in social control globally.Another limitation of our study is the punitive attitude index for the Russian data.

Even though factor analysis points to a single underlying construct for the Russian pu-nitive attitude index, the low alpha coefficient suggests that the three measures are notideal. It could be the case that Russian punitiveness is not captured with public views ofcourts, sentencing and capital punishment, as is the case in other contexts like theUnited States. Supplementary analysis indicates that measures for death penalty andlenient court practices have only medium regression loadings. Thus, it is possible thatthese indicators capture not only the punitiveness per se, but also attitudes towards thecourt system in Russia or resentment of the death penalty moratorium driven by therequirements of the European Council.21 Future research should consider the extentto which dimensions of punitive attitudes varies across social contexts. To be sure, nomatter how the desire to punish law violators is operationalized, it is undoubtedly linkedto perceived group threat in important ways in both the United States and Russia.

Funding

David Edelstein Family Foundation.

References

Abdulaev, N. and Saradzhyan, S. (2008), ‘Trade-Offs between Security and Civil Libertiesin Russia’s Counter-Terrorist Campaign in 2000–2004, in R. W. Orttung and A. Latta, eds,Russia’s Battle with Crime, Corruption, and Terrorism, 144–98. London and New York Rout-ledge Taylor and Francis Group.

Barkan, S. E. and Cohn, S. F. (2010), ‘Contemporary Regional Differences in Support byWhites for the Death Penalty: A Research Note’, Justice Quarterly, 27: 458–71.

Baumer, E. P., Messner, S. F. and Rosenfeld, R. (2003), ‘Explaining Spatial Variation inSupport for Capital Punishment: A Multilevel Analysis’, American Journal of Sociology, 108:844–75.

21See Semukhina and Galliher (2009) for a discussion about the symbolic meaning of the death penalty in Russia.

PERCEIVED GROUP THREAT AND PUNITIVE ATTITUDES IN RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES

955

by guest on Novem

ber 3, 2011http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/

Dow

nloaded from

Behrens, A., Uggen, C. and Manza, J. (2003), ‘Ballot Manipulation and the ‘‘Menace ofNegro Domination’’: Racial Threat and Felon Disenfranchisement in the United States,1850–2002’, American Journal of Sociology, 109: 559–605.

Berman, H. J. (1966), Soviet Criminal Law and Procedure: The RSFSR Codes. Cambridge, MAHarvard University Press.

Bhattacharji, P. (2010), ‘Chechen Terrorism (Russia, Chechnya, Separatist)’, availableonline at www.cfr.org/terrorism/chechen-terrorism-russia-chechnya-separatist/p9181.

Blalock, H. M. (1967), Toward a Theory of Minority-Group Relations.New York John Wiley andSons.

Blumer, H. (1958), ‘Race Prejudice as a Sense of Group Position’, Sociological Review, 1: 3–7.Bonacich, E. (1972), ‘A Theory of Ethnic Antagonism: The Split Labor Market’, American

Sociological Review, 37: 547–59.Brustein, W. I. and King, R. D. (2004), ‘Anti-Semitism in Europe before the Holocaust’,

International Political Science Review, 25: 35–53.Chiricos, T., Hogan, M. and Gertz, M. (1997), ‘Racial Composition of Neighborhood and

Fear of Crime’, Criminology, 35: 107–31.Chiricos, T., McEntire, R. and Gertz, M. (2001), ‘Perceived Racial and Ethnic Compo-

sition of Neighborhood and Perceived Risk of Crime’, Social Problems, 48: 322–40.Chiricos, T., Welch, K. and Gertz, M. (2004), ‘Racial Typification of Crime and Support

for Punitive Measures’, Criminology, 42: 358–90.Curtis, G. (1996), Russia: A Country Study.Washington, DCGPO for the Library of Congress.Earl, J., Soule, S. A. and McCarthy, J. D. (2003), ‘Protest under Fire? Explaining the Po-

licing of Protest’, American Sociological Review, 68: 581–606.Eitle, D., D’Alessio, S. J. and Stolzenberg, L. (2002), ‘Racial Threat and Social Control: A

Test of the Political, Economic, and Threat of Black Crime Hypotheses’, Social Forces, 81:557–76.

FOM (1989), ‘Bol’shinstvo Rossiyan po prezhnemu protiv otmeny smertnoi kazni’ [‘TheMajority of Russians Are Still Against an Abolition of the Death Penalty’], available onlineat http://bd.fom.ru/report/cat/pow_law/death_penalty/of19990108.

——— (1999), ‘The Survey of Russians’, available online at http://bd.fom.ru/report/cat/pow_law/death_penalty/t905015.

———(2001), ‘Omoratorii na smertnuyu kazn’ [‘About the Moratorium on the Death Pen-alty’], available online at http://bd.fom.ru/report/map/of012402.

——— (2002), ‘Neznachitel’nye prestupleniya’ [‘Unimportant Offences’], available onlineat http://bd.fom.ru/report/map/dd031226.

———‘Ksenophobia v Rossii: otsenka situatsii’ [‘Xenophobia in Russia: The Assessment ofSituation’] 2005 available online at http://bd.fom.ru/report/map/of054327.

———(2008), ‘Problema gastarbaiterov’ [‘The Problem of Gastarbeiters’], available onlineat http://bd.fom.ru/report/map/d082623.

Gerber, T. P. and Mendelson, S. E. (2008), ‘Public Experiences of Police Violence andCorruption in Contemporary Russia: A Case of Predatory Policing?’, Law and Society Re-view, 42: 1–44.

Giles, M. W. and Buckner, M. A. (1993), ‘David Duke and Black Threat: AnOldHypothesisRevisited’, Journal of Politics, 55: 702–13.

Gilinskiy, Y. (2000), ‘Challenges of Policing Democracies:The Russian Experience’, in D.K. Kas and O. Marenin, eds, Challengers of Policing Democracies: A World Perspective, 173–94.Amsterdam, Netherlands Gordon and Breach Publishers.

WHEELOCK ET AL.

956

by guest on Novem

ber 3, 2011http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/

Dow

nloaded from

GKS (2010a), ‘Chislennost’ postoyannogo naseleniya’ [‘Permanent Population Numbers’],available online at www.gks.ru/dbscripts/Cbsd/DBInet.cgi?pl=2409019.

——— (2010b), ‘Mezhdunarodnaya migratisya’ [‘International Migration’], availableonline at www.gks.ru/free_doc/new_site/population/demo/demo42.htm.

Granato, N. (2009), ‘Regional Concentration and Labor Market Success: Endogenous andExogenous Effects of Relative Minority Group Size’, Kolner Zeitschrift fur Soziologie undSozialpsychologie, 61: 387–409.

Greenberg, D. and West, V. (2001), ‘State Prison Populations and their Growth, 1971–1991’, Criminology, 39: 615–53.

Hunt, M. O. (2007), ‘African American, Hispanic, and White Beliefs about Black/WhiteInequality, 1977–2004’, American Sociological Review, 72: 390–415.

INDEM (2005), ‘Diagnostika rossiskoi korruptsii’ [‘Diagnostics of Russian Corruption’],available online at http://www.anti-corr.ru/projects.htm#2005.

Inshakov, S. M. (2007), Letentnaya prestupnost’ v Rossiiskoi Federatsii [Latent Crime in Russia.Moscow Zakon i Pravo.

Jacobs, D. and Carmichael, J. (2001), ‘The Politics of Punishment across Time and Space:A Pooled Time-Series Analysis of Imprisonment Rates’, Social Forces, 80: 61–91.

Jacobs, D. and Helms, R. (1999), ‘Collective Outbursts, Politics, and Punitive Resources:Toward a Political Sociology of Spending on Social Control’, Social Forces, 77: 1497–523.

Jacobs, D. and O’Brien, R. M. (1998), ‘The Determinants of Deadly Force: A StructuralAnalysis of Police Violence’, American Journal of Sociology, 103: 837–62.

Keeter, S., Miller, C., Kohut, A., Groves, R. M. and Presser, S. (2000), ‘Consequences ofReducing Nonresponse in a National Telephone Survey’, The Public Opinion Quarterly, 64:125–48.

Kesteren, J. V. (2009), ‘Public Attitudes and Sentencing Policies across theWorld’, EuropeanJournal of Criminal Policy Research, 15: 25–46.

King, R. and Wheelock, D. (2007), ‘Group Threat and Social Control: Race, Perceptions ofMinorities, and the Desire to Punish’, Social Forces, 85: 1255–80.

King, R., Messner, S. F. and Baller, R. D. (2009), ‘Contemporary Hate Crimes, Law En-forcement, and the Legacy of Racial Violence’, American Sociological Review, 74: 291–315.

Knigge, P. (1998), ‘The Ecological Correlates of Right-Wing Extremism in WesternEurope’, European Journal of Political Research, 34: 249–79.

Krajewski, K. (2009), ‘Punitive Attitudes in Poland: The Development of the Last Years’,European Journal of Criminal Policy Research, 15: 103–20.

Levada (2007), ‘Detskaya prestupnost’ [‘Juvenile Delinquency’], available online at http://sophist.hse.ru/.

Liska, A. E. (1992), Social Threat and Social Control. Albany, NY SUNY Press.Liska, A. E., Chamlin, M. B. and Reed, M. D. (1985), ‘Testing the Economic Production and

Conflict Models of Crime Control’, Social Forces, 64: 119–38.McAuley, M. and Macdonald, K. I. (2007), ‘Russia and Youth Crime. A Comparative Study

of Attitudes and their Implications’, British Journal of Criminology, 47: 2–22.Mendelberg, T. (2001), The Race Card: Campaign Strategy, Implicit Messages, and the

Norm of Equality. Princeton, NJ Princeton University Press.Meuleman, B., Davidov, E. and Billiet, J. (2009), ‘Changing Attitudes toward Immigra-

tion in Europe, 2002–2007: A Dynamic Group Conflict Theory Approach’, Social ScienceResearch, 38: 352–65.

PERCEIVED GROUP THREAT AND PUNITIVE ATTITUDES IN RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES

957

by guest on Novem

ber 3, 2011http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/

Dow

nloaded from

Muniz, P. J. D (2004), ‘Judicial Reform in Russia: Russia Looks to the Past to Create a NewAdversarial System of Criminal Justice’, Willamette Journal of International Law and DisputeResolution, 11: 81–106.

Myers, M. A. (1990), ‘Black Threat and Incarceration in Postbellum Georgia’, Social Forces,29: 373–93.

Pager, D. (2008), ‘The Republican Ideal? Ethnic Minorities and the Criminal Justice Systemin Contemporary France’, Punishment and Society, 10: 375–400.

Peffley, M., Hurwitz, J. and Sniderman, P. (1997), ‘Racial Stereotypes and Whites’ Polit-ical Views of Blacks in the Context of Welfare and Crime’, American Journal of Political Sci-ence, 41: 30–60.

Quillian, L. (1995), ‘Prejudice as a Response to Perceived Group Threat: Population Com-position and Anti-Immigrant and Racial Prejudice in Europe’, American Sociological Review,60: 586–611.

Quillian, L. and Pager, D. (2001), ‘Black Neighbors, Higher Crime? The Role of Racial Ster-eotypes in Evaluations of Neighborhood Crime’, American Journal of Sociology, 107: 717–67.

Reynolds, K. M., Semukhina, O. B. and Demidov, N. N. (2008), ‘A Longitudinal Analysis ofPublic Satisfaction with the Police in the Volgograd Region of Russia 1998–2005’, Inter-national Criminal Justice Review, 18: 158–89.

Robertson, A. (2004), ‘Police Reform in Russia’, in M. Caparini andO.Marenin, eds, Trans-forming Police in Central and Eastern Europe: Process and Progress, 289–304. Munster, Germany:Lit Verlag.

Rose, R. and Mishler, W. (2010), ‘Experience versus Perception of Corruption: Russia asa Test Case’, Global Crime, 11: 145–63.

Russell, K. K. (1998), The Color of Crime: Racial Hoaxes, White Fear, Black Protectionism, PoliceHarassment and Other Macroaggressions. New York New York University Press.

Salagaev,S.,Astashin,V.,Kozhirova,S.,Olekh,G.L.andReshetnikova,L.M.(2008),‘OneHand Washes the Other Informal Ties among Organized Crime Groups and Law Enforce-mentAgencies in Russia’, in R.W.Orttung andA. Latta, eds,Russia’s Battle with Crime, Corrup-tion, and Terrorism, 76–102. London and New York Routledge Taylor and Francis Group.

Savelsberg, J. (1994), ‘Knowledge, Domination, and Criminal Punishment’, American Jour-nal of Sociology, 99: 911–43.

Schlueter, E., Schmidt, P. and Wagner, U. (2008), ‘Disentangling the Causal Relations ofPerceived Group Threat and Outgroup Derogation: Cross-National Evidence from Ger-man and Russian Panel Surveys’, European Sociological Review, 24: 567–81.

Semukhina, O. B. and Galliher, J. F. (2009), ‘Death Penalty Politics and Symbolic Law inRussia’ International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice, 37: 131–53.

Shelley, L. (1996), Policing Soviet Society. The Evolution of State Control. London and New YorkRoutledge.

——— (1999), ‘Post-Socialist Policing Limitations on Institutional Change’, in R. I. Mawby,ed., Policing across the World: Issues for the Twenty-First Century, 75–87. New York UCL Press,Taylor and Francis Group.

Sutton, J. R. (2004), ‘The Political Economy of Imprisonment in Affluent Western Democ-racies, 1960–1990’, American Sociological Review, 69: 170–89.

Terrill, R. J. (2009), World Criminal Justice System. New Providence, NJ Lexis Nexis.Tolsma, J., Lubbers, M. and Coenders, M. (2008), ‘Ethnic Competition and Opposition to

Ethnic Intermarriage in the Netherlands: A Multi-Level Approach’, European SociologicalReview, 24: 215–30.

WHEELOCK ET AL.

958

by guest on Novem

ber 3, 2011http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/

Dow

nloaded from

Tyler, T. R. and Boeckmann, R. J. (1997), ‘Three Strikes and You Are Out, But Why? ThePsychology of Public Support for Punishing Rule Breakers’, Law and Society Review, 31:237–65.

Tyuryukanova, E. (2004), ‘Trudovaya migratsiya v Rossii’ [‘Labor Migration in Russia’],Othechestvennye zapiski, 4(18). Available online at http://www.strana-oz.ru/?numid=19&article=901.

Tyuryukanova, E. and Kostyrya, E. (2008), ‘The Socio-Economic and Criminal Effects ofContemporary Migration in Large Russian Cities’, in R. W. Orttung and A. Latta, eds,Russia’s Battle with Crime, Corruption, and Terrorism, 11–35. London and New York Rout-ledge.

UN (2008), ‘The Eleventh United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Crim-inal Justice Systems’, available online at www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/crime_survey_eleventh.html.

Unnever, J. and Cullen, F. T. (2010), ‘Racial-Ethnic Intolerance and Support for CapitalPunishment: A Cross National Comparison’, Criminology, 48: 831–64.

Velasco-Gonzalez, K., Verkuyten, M., Weesie, J. and Poppe, E. (2008), ‘Prejudice towardsMuslims in the Netherlands: Testing Integrated Threat Theory’, British Journal of SocialPsychology, 47: 667–85.

WCIOM (1989), ‘OMNIBUS 1989–14’, available online at http://sophist.hse.ru/.——— (1992), ‘OMNIBUS 1992–7’, available online at http://sophist.hse.ru/.——— (2001), ‘Vserossiskaya vyborka: Vopors 36’ [‘All-Russian Survey: Item #36’], available

online at www.wciom.ru.Welch, K., Payne, A. A., Chiricos, T. and Gertz, M. (2011), ‘The Typficiation of Hispanics

as Criminals and Support for Punitive Crime Control Policies’, Social Science Research, 40:822–40.

World Prison Brief (2011), available online at http://www.prisonstudies.org/info/worldbrief/.

Zircon (2002), ‘Migratsiya v Rossii: faktory obschestvennykh nastroenii’ [‘Migration in Russia:Factors ofPublicAttitudes’], availableonlineathttp://www.zircon.ru/russian/publication/1/030513.htm.

Zvekic, U. (1997), ‘Attitudes of Victims toward the Police and Punishment: Results of In-ternational Victimization Surveys’, Revue Internationale de Criminologie et de Police Technique,50: 3–16.

PERCEIVED GROUP THREAT AND PUNITIVE ATTITUDES IN RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES

959

by guest on Novem

ber 3, 2011http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/

Dow

nloaded from