NCJ Number
134332
Journal
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume: 82 Issue: 2 Dated: (Summer 1991) Pages: 396-422
Date Published
1991
Length
27 pages
Annotation
To measure perceptions of appropriate punishments for offenders convicted of various crimes committed under differing circumstances, the influence of offense characteristics, offender characteristics, victim characteristics, and survey respondent characteristics on judgments of felony punishments were examined empirically.
Abstract
A factorial survey approach was used to elicit judgments from a general population sample, criminal justice samples, and student samples regarding the punishments appearing in more than 61,000 vignettes describing criminal acts, offenders, and the harm resulting from the crimes. The relationship between the criminal perpetrator and the victim and between the offender's social status and that of the victim's social status influenced attitudes of appropriate sanctions. The socio-demographic characteristics of race, gender, and education influenced respondents' judgments about what constitutes appropriate criminal sanctions. Respondents called for an increase in punishment severity when either the crime victim or the criminal offender was a corporation rather than an individual. 30 footnotes, 5 tables, and 1 figure