Psy205 Final

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Southern New Hampshire University *

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205

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Psychology

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Jan 9, 2024

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Uploaded by haileyherron95hh

1 Article Review Final Project: Article Review Joshua Ferreira Zanotto Southern New Hampshire University PSY 205 Dr. Darchelle Curry December 10, 2023

2 Article Review Article Review My chosen topic for the article review is the death penalty. The Article I have chosen for my final research is “Understanding Death Penalty Support and Opposition among Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement Students” by Raj, Sethuraju, Jason Sole, and Oliver Brian. The article purposes two research questions the author will be addressing using a survey. The first question is exploring if there is a significant difference between opposing or supporting the death penalty among criminal justice majors and law enforcement majors. The elements of the surgery will include, “…. their levels of agreement with statements related to supporting the death penalty based on retribution, deterrence, law and order, incapacitation, and cost and their levels of agreement with statements related to opposing the death penalty based on morality, innocence, unfair application, brutalization, and emotional opposition.” (Sethuraju, Sole, & Oliver, 2016). The second part of the study is exploring if the level of their education has an impact on the level of agreement to the above statements. This article relates to my selected topic because, it explores the controversial around the death penalty. When European settlers came to America, Britain influence was present throughout the colonies, this influence includes the death penalty. The laws for the use of the death penalty varied throughout the colonies. “The Massachusetts Bay Colony held its first execution in 1630, even though the Capital Laws of New England did not go into effect until years later.” The Duke’s Laws of 1665 determined the offenses that were punishable by death, these include striking one’s parents or denying the “true God”. (Center,2023). The first attempt of reform surrounding the death penalty in the U.S. was during Thomas Jefferson’s presidency. Jefferson introduced a bill to revise the Virginia’s death penalty to state that capital punishment can only be used for crimes of murder and treason. This bill was not passed due losing by one

3 Article Review vote. Before 1834 executions were a public spectacle. Throughout the early 1800’s efforts were made to abolish the mandatory capital punish laws. The outlawing of the death penalty started to gain traction in the 1900’s, during, “ 1907 to 1917, six states completely outlawed the death penalty and three limited it to the rarely committed crimes of treason and first degree murder of a law enforcement official. ” (Center,2023). The death penalty was ruled unconstitutional in the Supreme Court case Furman v. Georgia in 1972. It was not until the Gregg v. Georgia cause in 1976 that the death was reinstated and declared constitutional. From that time there has been three notable cases in the change of the death penalty. In 2002 the Supreme Court case of Atkins v. Virginia determined a person of mental retardation could not be charged with the death penalty. The Roper v. Simmons case in 2005 found persons who were below the age of 18 at the time of the criminal act could not have the death penalty opposed on them. Lastly, in 2008 the Supreme Court's decision in Kennedy v. Louisiana, states that the death penalty can no longer be imposed if the “underlying crime did not result in the victim’s death.” (Center,2023). As these changes to the death penalty emerged the controversy around the death penalty grew. By 2013 the support for the death penalty was at its lowest since 1972. The authors of the article included three studies that were researched for the study conducted. “The first areas of this research focused on the personal characteristics of people and how these characteristics were related to varying levels of support for the death penalty.” (Sethuraju, Sole, & Oliver, 2016). Race and gender were found to be the two strongest individual-level characteristics in a person's support of the death penalty. The research studies found that white persons have higher levels of support for the death penalty. The research also found that white males are more supportive of the death penalty than female. There has been mix results on if age has a factor in the support of the death penalty, some found that older people

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4 Article Review tend to more supportive, while others find younger people to be more supportive, and “additional research finding that age was not related to death penalty support (Robbers, 2004).” (Sethuraju, Sole, & Oliver, 2016). Along with race and gender, political affiliation has been linked to support or opposition of the death penalty. The research in the article states that those who are Republicans have shown a higher level of support for the death penalty than Democrats or Independents. Education level also plays a role in a person's opinion of the death penalty, “those with higher levels of education typically are less supportive of the death penalty (Barkan & Cohn, 1994; Borg, 1997; Britt, 1998; Halim & Stiles, 2001; Vidmar & Ellsworth, 1974; Young, 1991).” (Sethuraju, Sole, & Oliver, 2016). The last two studies in the article used for research focus on college students. “In a second study that analyzed different reasons for supporting or opposing the death penalty based on gender, Lambert et al. (2009) reported that female students had significantly lower levels of agreement than male students for five statements that measured support for the death penalty based on retribution, for three statements that measured support for the death penalty based on deterrence, and for two of three statements that measured support for the death penalty based on incapacitation.” (Sethuraju, Sole, & Oliver, 2016). The last study the article uses focused on analyzing support or opposition on whether the student was a social work major or majoring in a different program. The article’s survey was conducted on criminal justice majors and law enforcement majors. The data was collected from the survey of a mid-size Midwestern urban university of 11,000 students. The selection of students was non-random, the participants were students from eight criminal justice classes during the Spring Semester. All of the students were either criminal justice or law enforcement majors. The participants completed the surgery on a voluntary basis and asked to only participate in the surgery once to prevent double participation. The survey

5 Article Review consisted of 15 statements and participates were asked to answer using a “five-item Likert-type response scale (1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = undecided, 4 = agree, 5 = strongly agree).” (Sethuraju, Sole, & Oliver, 2016). The independent variables in the surgery consisted of eight questions, “which measured fear of personal victimization, religious saliency, college level, race, gender, political affiliation, age, and major.” (Sethuraju, Sole, & Oliver, 2016). A total of 135 students completed the survey. Age was not included in the findings of the survey, due to lack of answering the item regarding age. “The results of the exploratory study did not provide evidence that there exist differences in levels of agreement with statements related to support or opposition of the death penalty when comparing law enforcement majors with other criminal justice majors.” (Sethuraju, Sole, & Oliver, 2016). The survey did find that education level and levels of agreement for three statement of support and one statement of opposition to be significant. Students who were further in their degree program were less likely to agree with statements for capital punishment. “Although the survey did not specifically inquire whether the students were in favor of or opposed to the death penalty, and therefore, it cannot be stated whether upper class students were less supportive of the death penalty than lower class students; the findings do nevertheless show that year in college did have a significant influence on opinions about two statements regarding law and order, along with one statement about deterrence and one statement about morality.” (Sethuraju, Sole, & Oliver, 2016). The article used numerous references in the article including Supreme Court cases, academic journals, and research studies. I believe the article to be valid and reliable. The authors use scholarly articles to support their research and survey. Strong evidence was provided to support the reason for the study and the need for the study. The authors used numerous citations

6 Article Review to support their claims through the introduction, literature review, and discussion. Ram Sethuraju is an assistance professor at the School of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice at Metropolitan State University. Jason sole is also a faculty member at the same university, and Brian E. Oliver is an independent researcher and consultant with a Masters and Doctorate in Criminology and Criminal Justice. The article is well written and thoughtful. The authors provide the reader with background information on the death penalty and previous studies conducted regarding opinions on the death penalty. The elements of the article were chronologically placed. The discussion and conclusions as thoughtful. The first limitation of the article was the size of the survey. The survey consisted of only 135 participants out of the 11,000 students on the campus. The size of the survey is relatively small compared to the population. Also, the college level of the students is a limitation. “Regarding college level, 6.06% of the students were freshmen, 13.64% were sophomores, 51.52% were juniors, and 28.79% were seniors.” (Sethuraju, Sole, & Oliver, 2016). One part of the findings was based on the student's education level, with only 6.06% of the participants being freshman, I believe the data is skewed towards the students further in their education. Lastly, the survey had significantly more criminal justice majors than law enforcement majors. “69.64% of the participants identified themselves as being criminal justice majors, and 30.37% identified themselves as being law enforcement majors.” (Sethuraju, Sole, & Oliver, 2016). This difference altered the results of the survey. Overall, I believe the article is reliable and well written. I do think the results of the survey would be better if the number of the participants was higher. Along with a more equal amount of the education level and majors of the students. The study supports its finding with another study that concluded that criminal justice majors are less likely to support harsh

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7 Article Review punishment. However, the significant difference in criminal justice majors and law enforcement majors was a limitation to this study.

8 Article Review References Center, D. P. I. (2023, April 28). History of the death penalty. Death Penalty Information Center. https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/curriculum/high-school/about-the-death-penalty/history-of- the-death-penalty Sethuraju, R., Sole, J., & Oliver, B. E. (2016). Understanding Death Penalty Support and Opposition among Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement Students. SAGE Open, 6(1). https://doi-org.ezproxy.snhu.edu/10.1177/2158244015624952

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