TY - JOUR
T1 - Public preferences for sentencing purposes: What difference does offender age, criminal history and offence type make?
AU - Spiranovic, Caroline A.
AU - Roberts, Lynne D.
AU - Indermaur, David
AU - Warner, Kate
AU - Gelb, Karen
AU - Mackenzie, Geraldine
PY - 2012/7/1
Y1 - 2012/7/1
N2 - Preferences of 800 randomly selected Australians for retributive and utilitarian sentencing purposes were examined in response to brief crime scenarios where offender age, offence type and offender history were systematically varied. Respondents selected rehabilitation as the most important purpose for first-time, young and burglary offenders. Punishment was endorsed as most important for repeat, adult and serious assault offenders. Multinomial logistic regression analysis revealed that offence history was a stronger predictor of public preferences than offender age or offence type; the odds of choosing rehabilitation compared with punishment were significantly increased by a factor of 6.1 for cases involving first-time offenders. It appears that when given specific cases to consider, the public takes an approach akin to that taken by the sentencing courts as they weigh up the importance of the various purposes for the case at hand. Public preferences are thus broadly consistent with current law and sentencing practice.
AB - Preferences of 800 randomly selected Australians for retributive and utilitarian sentencing purposes were examined in response to brief crime scenarios where offender age, offence type and offender history were systematically varied. Respondents selected rehabilitation as the most important purpose for first-time, young and burglary offenders. Punishment was endorsed as most important for repeat, adult and serious assault offenders. Multinomial logistic regression analysis revealed that offence history was a stronger predictor of public preferences than offender age or offence type; the odds of choosing rehabilitation compared with punishment were significantly increased by a factor of 6.1 for cases involving first-time offenders. It appears that when given specific cases to consider, the public takes an approach akin to that taken by the sentencing courts as they weigh up the importance of the various purposes for the case at hand. Public preferences are thus broadly consistent with current law and sentencing practice.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84862668760&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/1748895811431847
DO - 10.1177/1748895811431847
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84862668760
SN - 1748-8958
VL - 12
SP - 289
EP - 306
JO - Criminology and Criminal Justice
JF - Criminology and Criminal Justice
IS - 3
ER -