Measuring punitive attitudes towards immigrants in Spain: design and validation of a questionnaire

Abstract

Spain is one of the European countries that receives the most immigrants. This phenomena is very relevant for criminology, since the relationship between immigration, crime and public insecurity is part of the collective imagination. Public opinion about the punishment that offenders deserve (punitive attitudes) has been well studied, but there is no much specific research about that opinion regarding immigrants, at least in Spain. To supply this, a questionnaire to measure punitive attitudes towards immigrants was designed. In the validation process of the questionnaire, and before the expert judging, a pre-test was conducted among students of the Degree in Criminology and Master’s degree in Criminal Law and Criminal Policy at Universtiy of Malaga. Although the main objective of this was to test the questionnaire and detect errors, it was also possible to draw some interesting conclusions.