NCJ Number
179113
Journal
Punishment & Society Volume: 1 Issue: 1 Dated: July 1999 Pages: 11-26
Editor(s)
David Garland
Date Published
July 1999
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This article examines public knowledge and public opinion regarding sentencing trends in Britain.
Abstract
Research on public opinion over the past three decades has consistently established that the British public is critical of sentencers, and that this criticism exists independent of crime trends and even dramatic changes in criminal justice policies. In the 1996 British Crime Survey, respondents gave significantly more negative evaluations to judges than to any other group of criminal justice professionals. The public systematically underestimated the severity of sentencing patterns, which was significantly related to attitudes toward sentencers. When asked to provide a sentence in a specific case of burglary, respondents favored sentences that were on balance little different from, and if anything more lenient than, current sentencing practice. The article focuses on the policy implications of these findings, as well as their relation to research in other jurisdictions. Tables, notes, references