NCJ Number
181219
Journal
British Journal of Criminology Volume: 38 Issue: 3 Dated: Summer 1998 Pages: 453-472
Date Published
1998
Length
20 pages
Annotation
A quantitative survey of public attitudes toward homicide and the criminal justice system in England and Wales sought to test the assumptions made in substantive criminal law that the public recognizes variations in moral culpability among homicides and that these variations should result in separate offenses with separate sentencing.
Abstract
The survey also sought to determine what factors appear to influence the public's assessment of seriousness of homicides, how the law should categorize homicides, and what justifications and excuses deserve recognition. Another survey goal was to test public attitudes regarding the appropriate penalties for the most serious homicides. The survey used a random sample designed to represent the general population in England and Wales. The response rate was 71 percent and yielded 822 interviews. Participants considered eight hypothetical scenarios, ranked them in order of seriousness, suggested appropriate sentences for the scenarios they gave the highest and lowest rankings, reconsidered a scenario in which one factor changed, and gave their opinions about homicide in general. Results supported the initial assumption made by the criminal law that the public recognizes variations in the gravity of homicides. Furthermore, findings clearly suggested that the public would like these variations to be reflected in the legal recognition of separate offenses. The majority of factors participants noted as affecting their assessment of gravity essentially concerned culpability, they referred to some aspect of harmfulness on some occasions. An unexpected finding was that 55 percent of the participants supported capital punishment; about one-third of the participants favored natural life imprisonment for homicides. Tables, footnotes, list of cases, and 38 references