Defendant's Parental Status as Affecting Judges' Behavior - An Experimental Test

• NCJ Number: 76752
• Journal: Psychological Reports Volume: 42 Issue: 3 Dated: Part 1 (June 1978) Pages: 939-945
• Author(s): D J Steffensmeier; G L Faulkner
• Date Published: 1978
• Length: 7 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

An experimental study in which college students made sentencing decisions for a variety of hypothetical cases was conducted to test the 'Practicality' hypothesis, according to which defendants with children, especially female defendants, would receive preferential treatment in courts.

Abstract

The practicality hypothesis is based on the assumption that most female defendants have young children and that sending a mother to prison would both disrupt family life and impose a child care burden on the community and the father. The present study tested the hypothesis by varying the sex and parental status of the hypothetical defendant. Subjects were 102 male and 74 female undergraduates enrolled in a criminology and penology class at a large eastern university. The subjects were randomly assigned to one of four descriptions of a defendant: a male nonparent, female parent, and female nonparent. Subjects sentenced the defendant with respect to five crimes: shoplifting items worth $250, public drunkenness and disorderly conduct, shooting and killing the spouse following an argument, embezzling $3,000 from the employer, and possession and sale of hard drugs. The 12 potential penalties ranged from no penalty to execution. Results indicated that the defendants' parental status had little bearing on the sentencing decision but that female defendants were treated more leniently than male defendants. Thus, results provided little support for the practicality hypothesis. However, this finding does not necessarily mean that the defendant's parental status is not considered by the simulated judges. Judges may feel that the children's well-being is being jeopardized by the defendant's actions and may tend to view incarceration of the parent as beneficial for the children. Caution should be exercised in trying to generalize these experimental findings using college students to the actual decisionmaking behavior of judges. One table, two footnotes, and 11 references are provided.