RESEARCH ON ATTITUDES TO SENTENCING
Public knowledge of, and attitudes to, sentencing
practice: findings from the British Crime Survey (BCS) [19]
Public knowledge of sentencing options
105. Findings from the 1996 BCS indicate
widespread awareness of some, but by no means all, non-custodial
sentencing options. The most widely known are community service
orders (69 per cent of respondents) and fines (58 per cent). Only
a third identified probation. Others included suspended sentences
(30 per cent); compensation (16 per cent); conditional discharges
(8 per cent); and electronic tagging (7 per cent).
Knowledge of imprisonment rates
106. Most people greatly underestimate the
extent to which imprisonment is used. For instance 97 per cent
of adult males convicted of rape in 1995 were sent to prison,
but 57 per cent of BCS respondents thought less than 60 per cent
were. Although 61 per cent of convicted adult male house-burglars
were imprisoned in 1995, 55 per cent of respondents thought 30
per cent or less were.
Public sentencing preferences
107. On average, BCS respondents thought
94 per cent of rapists should be imprisoned, 84 per cent of muggers
and 80 per cent of burglars.
108. However, when asked to choose the most
appropriate sentence for a particular offender (a 23 year old
burglar who in real life had received a two-year prison sentence
on appeal) only about half chose imprisonment. A quarter selected
a community service order, a fifth a fine, a fifth a suspended
sentence, one in ten tagging and one in ten probation (more than
one option could be chosen). There was no evidence that victims
were any more punitive than non-victims.
Trends in sentencing preferences among victims
109. Victims have, though, got more punitive
over time. The proportion of burglary victims who want their offender
imprisoned rose from 33 per cent in 1984 to 48 per cent in 1996.
Victims of car theft show a similar pattern.
Attitudes to current sentencing practice
110. 79 per cent of people think current
sentencing practice is too lenient, but the evidence suggests
that this tends to be a function of misperceptions about crime
(that it is rising rapidly) and justice (belief that the
use of imprisonment is falling and underestimation of its current
use).
Comparing sentencing preferences in England and Wales
with other European countries: findings from the International
Crime Victims Survey (ICVS) [20]
111. The ICVS asked people what sentence
they considered appropriate for a recidivist burglar (a man aged
21 found guilty of burglary for the second time having stolen
a colour television). Support for a custodial sentence was relatively
high in England and Wales at 49 per cent of respondents. This
has increased from 38 per cent in 1989 and 37 per cent in 1992.
The proportion opting for a community service order has remained
constant at around 39 per cent while that proposing a fine fell
from 11 per cent in 1989 to 8 per cent in 1996.
112. The preference for custodial sentences
shown in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland is out
of line with all other European countries—where a community
service order tends to be seen as most appropriate.
Sentencers' views on the aims of community penalties
113. One of the aims of the community sentence
demonstration projects in Shropshire and Teeside (see paragraph
161) are, amongst other things, aiming to improve the way community
sentences are perceived, used and enforced. Full results from
this work will be published in 1998, but some preliminary findings
about how sentencers perceive the functions of different sentences
are already available. In a postal survey, 509 magistrates in
the two project areas were asked what aims they believed probation,
community service, combination orders and imprisonment could
achieve. The results showed that 8 out of 10 magistrates believed
probation orders could prevent reoffending and rehabilitate offenders,
but only a third thought they could act as a deterrent. The combination
order was seen as the most versatile sentence: again around 80
per cent thought it could rehabilitate, three quarters saw it
as providing reparation and restriction of liberty and about 60
per cent thought it could deter. In contrast prison was thought
to restrict liberty (94 per cent) and deter effectively (80 per
cent), but only a quarter thought it could rehabilitate.
114. When asked what they considered the
main aim of each sentence to be, half the magistrates saw
probation as preventing reoffending and a third believed it was
rehabilitation. CS was mainly expected to provide reparation and
combination orders to prevent reoffending. A majority (60 per
cent) saw restriction of liberty as the main aim of prison, 18
per cent thought its main aim was deterrence and 14 per cent thought
it was to prevent reoffending. Only one magistrate in each area
thought the main aim of prison was to rehabilitate.
C. PRESENT
POLICIES
19 Research report "Attitudes to punishment: findings
from the British Crime Survey" by Mike Hough and Julia Roberts,
shortly to be published. Back
20
"Criminal Victimisation in Eleven Industrialised Countries:
Key Findings from the 1996 International Crime Victims Survey".
Pat Mayhew and Jan van Dijk, published in 1997 by the Dutch Ministry
of Justice. Back
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