Lay and Professionals' Beliefs about Crime and Criminal Sentencing

Abstract

A conceptual framework, schema theory, is presented to understand and compare lay and professionals' beliefs about crime and evaluations of the criminal justice system. Questionnaires were administered to a sample of probation officers (N = 145) and laypersons (N = 179) to examine differences between laypersons and probation officers' beliefs about burglary characteristics and evaluations of judicial sentencing. As expected from schema theory, laypersons were significantly more likely than probation officers to report that the burglar carried a weapon, had a longer adult and juvenile record, and was likely to commit physical harm in the future. In their evaluations of criminal sentencing, probation officers relied on their perception of the congruency between their own sentencing preferences and their impressions of judicial sentencing. Directions for future research are discussed.

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