Crime and punishment: Rural people are more punitive than city-dwellers

Public attitudes towards punishment have been a key area of research in criminology. Criminologists are interested in the attitudes of the general public towards the punishment of those who have committed crime.
This is especially important information because the public has a powerful political voice when it comes to the determining how we deal with and control crime.
Research in this area has tended towards broad national examinations of punitive attitudes and has even looked at differences based on gender, age, class and education.