Word.ws English Dictionary

legal cynicism

legal cynicism noun: a perspective under which criminal law and law enforcement are seen as unresponsive or indifferent to public safety, and instead serve primarily to exclude disfavored communities from society.

Noun

legal cynicism (uncountable)

  1. A perspective under which criminal law and law enforcement are seen as unresponsive or indifferent to public safety, and instead serve primarily to exclude disfavored communities from society.
    • Sampson and Bartusch measure legal cynicism using five variables designed to assess general beliefs about the legitimacy of law and social norms.2006, James W. Burfeind, Juvenile Delinquency: An Integrated Approach, page 488

Questions about legal cynicism

What does legal cynicism mean?
Legal cynicism means a perspective under which criminal law and law enforcement are seen as unresponsive or indifferent to public safety, and instead serve primarily to exclude disfavored communities from society.
What part of speech is legal cynicism?
Legal cynicism is a noun.

Words near legal cynicism in the dictionary

  1. legal chemistry
  2. legal code
  3. legal codes
  4. legal consequence
  5. legal consequences
  6. legal cynicism
  7. legal doctrine
  8. legal doctrines
  9. legal doublet
  10. legal doublets
  11. legal duties

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: legal cynicism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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