LIT REVIEW OF ARTICLEA Liberal Is Someone Who Has Not Been Mugged”: Criminal Victimization and Political Beliefs

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A Review of “Liberal Is Someone Who Has Not Been Mugged”: Criminal Victimization and Political Beliefs”

In the article, “Liberal is Someone Who Has Not Been Mugged: Criminal Victimization and Political Beliefs,” Unner D. James, Cullen T. Francis, and Fisher S. Bonnie explore the conservative commentators’ argument that continuing liberal beliefs are attributable to the notion that there has been no mugging of progressives. In this article, the researchers claim that the argument presented by the conservative commentators mirrors leftist ideologies on public policy with the inclusion of crime, as ideal, if not insincere, as embraced by individuals who have not encountered harsh realities (310). Unnever et al., justify their argument by testing their thesis (that is the mugging thesis) using national-level data acquired from the General Social Survey that span 20 years (332). Regulating for a range of predictors associated with the public view, the findings of this study revealed the absence of a discernible association between being a victim of crime and holding a conservative worldview, upholding conservative social laws, or being retributive towards criminal actions, as measured by backing for harsher courts and death penalty.

The outcomes of this study question the authenticity of the mugging argument and of efforts to employ slogans to challenge progressive political views. Those who embrace the mugging argument suppose that retributive public insolences or attitudes are acquired from direct encounter with victimization or crime (King & Maruna 152). Individuals often become “fed up” with crime and strive to punish criminals (Jackson 232). On the other hand, social theories associated with punitive tendencies typically depict retribution as a system of victimization in which lawbreakers are considered a mere stand-in population that masks more abstract anxieties. In their multivariate survey analysis, the researchers established that factors like economic concerns and the youth’s state in the current times account a significant proportion of the impact of the exact crime concerns on retributive measures (King & Maruna 163). On the contrary, crime associated factors such as anxieties about crime or victimization about crime do not appear as robust predictors of vengeance (King & Maruna 164).

In line with much of the existing literature, social class origins and education happen to be among the strongest defensive aspects against punitiveness. Nevertheless, when considered solely, these demographic aspects reveal insignificant variance in punitive tendencies (Critcher et al. 192). Thus, punitiveness can rarely be comprehended as a syndrome for the white male since gender and race are insignificant predictors. Instead, the results of this study strengthen social theoretical work associating punitiveness with subjective responses to social change. In relation to this, it can be noted that the findings of this research support the argument that Unner et al., present in their article. Among the Western liberal democracies, the United States happens to be the only nation that executes sentenced murderers (). Besides, the U.S happens to be the nation with the highest rate of per capita incarceration among the Western liberal democracies (). Central to comprehending why the U.S is more disciplinary that its counterparts in the West is the assessment of why certain American embrace a conservative political philosophy.  Unner et al., accomplishes this goal by exploring the association between victimization and conservative opinions on crime characterized by advocacy for punitive laws. These researchers also achieve their objective by exploring a more universal conservative philosophy on social issues. In this manner, Unnever et al manages to justify the argument that conservative commentators’ claim (that is the mugging claim) mirrors leftist opinions on public law including criminal acts, as idyllic, if not devious, as upheld by persons who have not had an experience with harsh realities.