The paper concludes that punitive attitudes and practices, especially pronounced in the United States, have been increasing in Europe as well. Changes in crime rates provide only a limited and indirect explanation for this trend. Public attitudes toward crime (anxiety and punitiveness) are cultivated under various cultural postures and values regarding how to control and respond to perceived threats to safety and security. Conservative elites and media policies regarding the frequency and style of reporting on crime may play a major role, particularly in the United States. Conditions of late modernity--i.e., the increased intermingling of people of diverse race/ethnicity, religion, cultural, and national origin--also cultivate fear of change and anxiety about behaviors and beliefs perceived as unacceptable and unwelcome. Although punitive responses to these conditions and changes are not a natural outcome, they are more likely where a mainstream cultural system is embedded and legitimized under religious tenets and a sense of national identity linked to the status quo. Factors contributing to punitive criminal justice policies appear to be more prevalent and intense in the United States than in the Federal Republic of Germany. An appropriate theory of punitive attitudes and practices at the level of nation states must be multifactorial as well as historically and institutionally grounded. 2 figures and 47 references