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RETRIBUTION, PUBLIC OPINION, AND CRIMINAL SENTENCING
Abstract
The current study sought to assess the extent to which residents of different jurisdictions agree as to what penalties should be attached to various crimes, the degree to which public opinion and statutory law agree on sentence length and periods of statutes of limitation, and the effect of the passage of time on sentencing choice. A four-page, 292-item questionnaire was developed and sent to 1,000 randomly selected residents of California and Indiana (500 per state). The questionnaire contained sections asking respondents to (1) assign penalties to six crimes presented in vignette form wherein the time between the commission of the crime and the arrest/conviction were systematically varied, (2) assign penalties to 21 crimes not presented in vignette form, (3) indicate their victimization history, and (4) report demographic data. Respondents (N = 278) were split into several sub-groups by jurisdiction, victimization history, age, sex, race, income, education, and city size. The results indicate that very few differences exist among the sub-groups with respect to either the rank ordering (relative seriousness) of the crimes, or the actual sentences chosen. Women were found to assign longer penalties than men to 20 of the 21 offenses, but only five of the differences (those for "lesser" offenses) were significant. Non-whites assigned shorter sentences for 17 offenses, but only three differences (those for the most serious crimes) were significant. Residents of Indiana favored longer sentences than Californians on all 21 offenses, but only five differences were significant. No differences were found between "victims" and non-victims, or between any of the remaining sub-groups. The percentage of respondents selecting a penalty longer than that currently in force by law was significant for 16 of the 21 crimes. Contrary to expectation, a significant decrease in "punitive desire" did not evolve from the passage of time. Penalty choices remained consistent across time and went significantly beyond existing statutes of limitation. Implications of the findings for lawmakers were discussed, and directions for further research were noted.
Subject Area
Psychotherapy
Recommended Citation
WILSON, KENT ALLEN, "RETRIBUTION, PUBLIC OPINION, AND CRIMINAL SENTENCING" (1984). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8423844.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8423844