Measuring Public Attitudes to Criminal Justice

Roberts, Julian V.; Feilzer, M.Y.; Hough, Mike

doi:10.4135/9781446268285.n19

Cited by 46 publications

(82 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…This is especially interesting, since studies abroad report the opposite: a tendency among the general public to under-estimate the true severity of sentences (cf. Roberts and Hough 2005).…”

Section: Judges and The Public On The Same Cases Files (Comparison C1)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Barber and Doob 2004;Hough and Roberts 1998;Hutton 2005;Mattinson and Mirrlees-Black 2000;Roberts and Hough 2002). However, in recent years, research has accumulated to build a strong case against the validity of such survey measurement of public opinion on crime and punishment (see, for overviews, Roberts and Hough 2005;Roberts et al 2003). A number of reasons have been put forward to explain why public attitudes towards sentencing are not as punitive as general survey questions would tempt us to believe.…”

Section: Previous Research and Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Bridging the gap between judges and the public? A multi-method study

2007

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article examines the gap between Dutch judges and the public in terms of preferred severity of sentences. It focuses on one particular explanation usually given for the gap: the lack of case-specific, detailed information on the part of the general public. Findings from three studies are reported and combined: (a) a survey among a sample from the Dutch population (N=2,127), (b) a sentencing experiment with judges in Dutch criminal courts (N=180), and (c) a sentencing experiment, using the same case materials as with judges, but now with a sample from the Dutch population (N=917). Results show that providing the public with detailed case information indeed reduces severity of sentences preferred. Moreover, those members of the public who were given short and unbalanced newspaper reports preferred much harsher sentences than did those who were given the full case files. However, despite such a reduction in punitiveness as a result of information, the public's preferred sentences remain much more punitive than judges' sentences pertaining to exactly the same case files.

show abstract

Section: Judges and The Public On The Same Cases Files (Comparison C1)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Previous Research and Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Bridging the gap between judges and the public? A multi-method study

2007

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Their focus is mainly on violent and interpersonal offences. This way the media are playing upon public fears by overstating the danger of criminal victimisation, criticising the authorities for leniency, emphasising failure of rehabilitation, and calling for more and harsher punitive measures (Cheliotis, 2010;Roberts & Hough, 2005). These misperceptions about crime trends and sentencing practices can lower levels of confidence in the criminal justice system (Mirrlees-Black, 2001).…”

Section: Media Influence On the Public's Perception Of Crimementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Probation's "image problem" (Bauwens & Mair, 2012) could be partly a product of its ambiguous status as a combination of institutionalisation and community rehabilitation; questionable appropriateness and/ or legitimacy; the fact that probation does not provide the same volume of information of interest to the public as other criminal justice topics and may not have reason to disseminate as much information to the public as e.g. the police; but it could also be related to its portrayal in the media (Maguire & Carr, 2013;Roberts & Hough, 2005). Probation needs to use the media to increase understanding and support of its work; as regards community sanctions, "ignorance is a fundamental problem" (McNeill, 2009) which may lead to the reemergence of popular punitive measures and to demands for more expressive and emotive forms of punishment (Bauwens & Mair, 2012).…”

Section: Media Portrayal Of Probation Servicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Portrayal of the Croatian Probation Service's Development in Print Media

Sučić

2016

Drustvena istrazivanja

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Generally, research related to the media representation of probation is relatively rare, especially in jurisdictions without a long tradition of probation. The aims of this study were to investigate what themes emerged in constructing the public image of probation and who were probation's key promoters, and to analyse whether there was uniform presentation of probation in the media over time. The 390 newspaper articles related to probation that were published in national newspapers and magazines between 2009 and 2013 were analysed. The analysis showed that stories about probation were typically short, probation was typically not a main topic, and issues on probation were mainly superficially elaborated. Probation in Croatia has relatively low media visibility, but legislation, regulations, and expectations from probation emerged as main themes. Initially, reducing prison overcrowding and financial costs were the most frequently mentioned benefits of probation, but over time, attention shifted slightly towards focusing on the benefits of probationers' resocialisation and rehabilitation. The tone of the stories was generally positive or neutral, and politicians were the strongest advocates of the probation system. Media interest in probation fluctuated over the years, and probation has recently faced more criticism than before, most likely because of the many obstacles that it experienced in the course of becoming truly functional in practice.

show abstract