Citizen Judgments Of Appropriate Punishment: An Exploratory Inquiry

Abstract

The justice model suggests that punishment ought to be administered in accord with the seriousness of the offense, and that citizen judgments might be used in operationalizing the model (von Hirsch, 1976). This paper examines the question of whether citizens agree in their assessments of appropriate punishment for various offenses, as well as on the underlying rationales for the punishments that they assign. It can be argued that if citizen sentiments are to be considered in the creation of scales of just punishment, citizens must agree both with respect to the kinds of punishment that ought to be administered and with respect to the basis for such punitive determination. The results of an exploratory empirical survey, using an open-ended questionnaire format, suggest that relatively low levels of agreement exist regarding both the specific punishments viewed as appropriate for criminal transgressions and the underlying basis of punitive assessments.