Should people obey laws without exceptn?

obeylaw

Source

General Social Survey https://gss.norc.org

Details

Question In general, would you say that people should obey the law without exception, or are there exceptional occasions on which people should follow their consciences even if it means breaking the law? (CIRCLE ONE ANSWER)

Values

[1] obey the law without exception
[2] follow conscience on occassions
[NA(d)] can't choose [NA(i)] iap [NA(j)] I don't have a job [NA(m)] dk, na, iap [NA(n)] no answer [NA(p)] not imputable [NA(r)] refused [NA(s)] skipped on web [NA(u)] uncodeable [NA(x)] not available in this release [NA(y)] not available in this year [NA(z)] see codebook

Question Years and Ballots

ballots	years
A/B/-	2016
A/B/C	1990, 1996
D/-/-	2006
Full	1985

Overview

For further details see the GSS Data Explorer page for obeylaw.

Counts by year:

year	iap	obey the law without exception	follow conscience on occassions	can't choose	no answer	not available in this year	Total
1985	857	269	354	45	9	-	1534
1990	155	476	634	72	35	-	1372
1996	1572	535	717	64	16	-	2904
2006	2992	799	709	9	1	-	4510
2016	1477	568	795	16	11	-	2867
Total	7053	2647	3209	206	72	0	13187