NCJ Number
241540
Date Published
2005
Length
30 pages
Annotation
In order to explore issues in the effort of this volume to compare conviction and sentencing patterns in relation to trends in each of six crimes (burglary, motor vehicle theft, robbery, assault, rape, and homicide) in eight countries, this chapter draws cross-national conclusions about the comparative severity of countries' punishment practices as measured in diverse ways.
Abstract
The measures of punishment practice considered are the imprisonment rate per 100,000 in the population, the probabilities of conviction or prison commitment per recorded offense; the probabilities of imprisonment per offense or per convictions; and the average prison sentence lengths per offense or per commitment. The analyses in this essay are based on the time average over the 20 years of each of the parameters characterizing criminal justice processing in each of the eight countries. A separate examination of time trends suggests that there have been a limited number of strong trends in various aspects of punitiveness. These have occurred more often in severity of punishment than in its certainty, and primarily with reference to the violent offenses. The main conclusions are that the United States, by multiple measures, is substantially more punitive than other Western countries; and that, for different reasons, the Swiss and the Swedes are among the least punitive, while England and Wales are rapidly moving in an American direction. These findings are not surprising, but they are more firmly based in data than is usually the case. The conclusions drawn are necessarily tentative, but they illustrate that such analyses are possible and that they can be improved as techniques for standardizing and calibrating data across nations also improve. 15 tables and 14 references