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Practices And Influence Of The Criminal Legal System

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Abstract The criminal legal system has an effect on the life of every American, and it is therefore of vital public interest to facilitate it functioning optimally. This can only be accomplished with a more comprehensive understanding of this system. Building on the work of Martin and Cohn (2004) and Wu, Lake and Cao (2015), this study sought to better understand the system through the administration of a self-report survey. This survey measured participant Attitudes Toward the Criminal Legal System (ATCLS) and Belief in a Just World (BJW), in addition to collecting demographic information. The sample included 221 participants from Southern California, including 102 males and 119 females. There were limitations, including the use of a …show more content…

Because of this, it is important to measure attitudes towards the criminal legal system, as understanding of where these attitudes diverge in society could provide an indication of where to focus efforts towards reform and improvement of the system. It is also important to explore the relationship between a belief in a just world and attitudes towards the criminal legal system, as the former had a significant impact on the validation of the latter (Martin & Cohn, 2004). In addition, exploring the relationship between these factors and past criminal behavior is vital to generating a more detailed and comprehensive view of the issues at hand. To measure attitudes towards the criminal legal system and legal socialization, Martin and Cohn (2004) proposed the Attitudes Toward the Criminal Legal System Scale (ATCLS). Across five studies, they sought to validate their scale through measuring the correlation between the results of several surveys, including the Belief in a Just World Scale (BJW), and the ATCLS scale. The goal of the first two studies was to establish reliability and validity for the ATCLS scale, and the goal of the third study was to establish test-retest reliability of the ATCLS scale. The goal of the final two studies was to replicate the results of the prior three studies with samples not drawn from student populations. These studies indicated that the ATCLS survey has

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