Exploring the Impact of Remorse on Recommendations for Sentencing Diversion for Defendants With Psychiatric Diagnoses

Abstract

This study, using semi-structured interviews with a sample of probation officers (N = 151), develops a model that suggests how officers may weigh psychiatric diagnoses when assessing defendants’ expressions of remorse and how this may shape their presentencing recommendations for sentencing diversion. Results suggest that probation officers consider psychiatric diagnoses when evaluating remorse in sentencing contexts in three main ways: (a) the extent to which psychiatric symptoms may lead defendants to have difficulties showing conventional expressions of remorse and complicate how officers understand their non-normative remorse displays; (b) how psychiatric symptoms can mitigate defendants’ emotional behaviors used to develop and “feel” remorse, particularly their blunted empathy and hindered recognition of their criminal acts; and (c) some officers make stigmatized assumptions about personal qualities of defendants diagnosed with psychiatric diagnoses, which can lead them to be critical of their remorse. Then, drawing from views in the first two areas, officers discussed providing information on defendants’ psychiatric illnesses—and the potential impacts on their abilities to show or develop remorse—to support recommendations for sentencing diversion in presentencing reports. Takeaways, as well as how remorse assessments may shape probation recommendations for sentencing diversion for defendants with psychiatric diagnoses, are discussed.