Annex
PUBLIC ATTITUDES TOWARDS SENTENCING: RESEARCH
FINDINGS
Politicians and criminal justice professionals
tend to assume that the general public is punitive towards offenders,
wanting courts to mete out tougher sentences. On the face of it,
there is plenty of empirical evidence to suggest that the courts
are indeed out of step with public opinion. Polls and surveys
have consistently painted a picture of a punitive public, highly
dissatisfied with sentencing practice:
— asked if sentences
are generally tough enough, most people say that they are not;
and
— asked if sentences
are in touch with what ordinary people think, most say they are
not;
— asked how good
a job various criminal justice professionals do, most people give
lowest ratings to judges.
However, if one looks below the surface of these
findings, there is a more complex picture. The British Crime Survey
and other research suggests that public opinion on sentencing
is more diverse, and less outrightly punitive than usually supposed.
Relevant findings are:
— people are systematically
ignorant about current practice;
— they tend to
assume that courts are much more lenient than they actually are;
and
— when asked suitable
punishments for individual cases of specific types of crime, many
people's preferences tended to reflect the range of sentences
actually imposed.
These findings are consistent with work carried
out in several other industrialised countries, notably Australia,
Canada, the Netherlands and the United States. They imply that
the tough-minded views expressed in response to very general questions
are fuelled by ignorance of sentencing practice, or else by impatience
with the apparent lack of impact of the criminal justice system
on crime. General questions are also answered with the worst case
scenario in mind, where the crime is atypically serious, committed
by a typically persistent and hardened offenders. Media reporting
of crime—by the tabloid press in particular—is the
most obvious explanation for the distortions of public understanding
of crime and punishment.
When provided with full information about individual
cases, people are far more likely to accept current practice.
The clearest demonstration of this can be found in a survey carried
out for the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice in 1992-93. This
asked some 2,300 jurors what they thought about the sentence passed
in the case on which they served. Almost a third (32 per cent)
said the sentence was as they had expected, and exactly the same
proportion said they had no expectation as regards sentence. The
remaining one-third was divided between those who thought it was
more severe (14 per cent) or less severe (23 per cent). Sentencing
practice in the Crown Court has become tougher since the survey
was carried out.
Surveys also find widespread support for reparative
forms of punishment, and for the view that prisons are schools
for criminals. Given the choice between more spending on prisons,
and a wider range of more demanding community penalties, more
people opt for the latter than the former.
Common sense might suggest that victims of crime
are likely to be especially punitive. However, the British Crime
Survey has shown that victims are not on balance markedly more
punitive than non-victims. Their preferences for punishment, on
balance, do not seem out of line with court practice either.
The key policy implications of these findings
are:
— public dissatisfaction
with sentencing is intense, and needs addressing;
— increasing the
severity of sentences is unlikely to achieve this;
— instead, public
misperceptions need to be corrected; and
— the rationale
for sentencing practice needs to be explained to the public.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Houghe, M (1996) "People talking about
punishment", Howard Journal, Vol 35, No 3.
Hough, M and Moxon, D (1985) Dealing with
offenders: public opinion and the views of victims. Howard
Journal, 24, 160-175.
Maguire, M (1982) Burglary in a Dwelling.
London: Heinemann.
Roberts, J (1992) "Public opinion, crime
and criminal justice." In Tonry, M (ed) Crime and
Justice: a review of research. Vol 16. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
Shapland, J with Willmore, J and Duff, P (1981)
The Victim in the Criminal Justice System. Oxford: Centre
for Criminological Research.
Walker, N and Hough, M (Eds) (1988) Public
Attitudes to Sentencing: Surveys from Five Countries. Aldershot:
Gower.
Zander, M and Henderson, P (1993) Crown Court
Study. Royal Commission on Criminal Justice StudyNo. 19. London:
HMSO.
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