Narratives from the persons interviewed are used to develop a theory about who supports and who disagrees with the current consensus on criminal justice. The analysis also explores the relationships between political beliefs and attitudes toward crime, noting the dissonance that exists in some cases. The analysis concludes that the United States population has developed harsher attitudes toward crime in part because it has become more liberal on a variety of other social issues, not in spite of these other changes in attitudes. The discussion also concludes that both conservative and liberal decisionmakers have often overlooked the complexity of the public's views on the issue. Activists on the left have focused on the ineffectiveness of prisons in preventing recidivism while ignoring the public's desire for punishment; in contrast, conservative policymakers often focus only on punitiveness and overlook the public's desire for security, and thus for effective sentencing policies. Chapter notes, index, appended instrument and methodological information, and 241 references