His research, carried out under the auspices of the International Centre for Comparative Criminology, involved a sample of 817 Canadians. The data obtained suggests the following: The level of punitiveness is not influenced by the sex of the person, nor by fear of crime or of victimization and not even by actual victimization. Punitiveness seems connected to socio-economic factors (income, province of residence, ownership of property) to the extent that these factors are associated with a certain ideology, or a certain view of the world. The author was able to establish that there is a link between the scores on a liberalism/conservatism scale and punitiveness. The level of punitiveness influences the perception that people have of prisons and of criminals. The higher the level of punitiveness, the more people have a tendency to use the 'violent criminal' as their point of reference to justify their view that prisons are soft on criminals and to demand harsher penalties. (Author abstract)