IS THE NED KELLY SYNDROME DEAD?
– SOME AUSTRALIAN DATA ON ATTITUDES TO SHOPLIFTING J J Ray* Abstract To a sample of 54 club members, 32 shop assistants, 36 schoolboys and 43 Lebanese immigrants was administered a set of 32 questions concerning attitudes to shoplifting and the Ray (1974) Alienation scale. There were no significant differences on mean attitude to shoplifting among the four groups and all groups overall were strongly disapproving of shoplifting. On two groups there was a significant correlation between alienation and acceptance of shoplifting. The 32 attitude to shoplifting items were shown to form a scale of satisfactory reliability. Introduction With Australia’s origin as a repository for criminals, it must be no surprise that sympathy for the criminal is an historic element in Australian culture. This sympathy is best shown in the still well-known case of Ned Kelly. Kelly was a highway robber with none of the redistributive morality of a Robin Hood and yet he very rapidly became and has since remaine
