Findings indicate that anger about crime is a significant predictor of punitive attitudes. The angrier Whites and Blacks are about crime, the more likely they are to support harsh criminal justice policies. With regard to the source of the anger, what it is related to, and to whom or what the anger is directed, findings suggest that anger about crime is linked to feelings of anxiety, threat, and resentment resulting from macro-level changes in the economy and in the social order. Street crime offers a way to channel public anger and anxiety away from amorphous social and economic threats and toward criminals who threaten the well-being of society. The findings have implications for policymakers, politicians, and interest groups who wish to influence public opinion on criminal justice issues. Research notes that punitive attitudes are often difficult to change, given their stable, social psychological underpinnings. To the extent that punitive attitudes are linked to emotions and feelings, they will be less responsive to cognitive information campaigns. Appealing to both the cognitive and affective nature of attitudes may prove a more successful strategy for these groups. Data for these analyses came from the 2001 Race, Crime and Public Opinion Study (RCPOS) which combines large national samples of Black and White respondents with measures of the anger and punitiveness, as well as control variables, such as perceived racial bias, racial prejudice, attributions about the causes of crime, and political ideology. Tables, notes, and references