Qualitative work with water quality inspectors suggests that structured discretion shapes the transition from informal to administrative sanctions and depends both on impressions formed about the morality of the polluter and the seriousness of the incident. Undergraduates (n = 118) at a diverse, urban university judged vignettes based on an actual prosecution. In a fully between 2 × 2 × 2 randomized design, the authors manipulated incident damage, polluter criminal history, and polluter-regulator relationship. These features influenced respondents’perceptions of offender cooperativeness and event seriousness. Cooperativeness influenced reactions to the appropriateness of prison; event seriousness influenced reactions to the appropriateness of a long prison term. Results suggest the factors influencing reactions to the transition from civil to severe criminal sanctions are somewhat similar to the factors influencing regulators’transitioning from informal to administrative sanctioning; in both sets of processes impressions formed of the incident and the offender mediate the relevant dynamics.
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