Public Opinion, Crime, and Criminal Justice

Roberts, Julian V.

doi:10.1086/449205

Cited by 175 publications

(164 citation statements)

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“…That it is important to assess the moral intuition of the populace as a backdrop for legal policy is hardly an unprecedented proposition. There have been numerous studies that examine people's moral sentiments in the context of torts, contracts, and criminal prosecutions (e.g., Korobkin, 2002;Roberts & Stalans, 1997;Robinson & Darley, 1995;Thomas & Hogue, 1976;Tyler & Boeckmann,1997;Wissler et al, 1997). Likewise, lay intuitions may also be informative in the context of child custody in family law and thus provide policymakers with useful information about societal values.…”

Section: Moral Intuitions About Fault Parenting and Child Custody Amentioning

confidence: 99%

Moral intuitions about fault, parenting, and child custody after divorce.

Votruba

Braver

Ellman

et al. 2014

Psychology, Public Policy, and Law

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Allocations of child custody post-divorce are currently determined according to the Best Interest Standard, i.e. what is best for the child. Decisions about what is best for a child necessarily reflect cultural norms, at least in part. It is therefore useful as well as interesting to ask whether current understandings of the best interest standard align with moral intuitions of lay citizens asked to take the role of judge in hypothetical cases. Do factors such as whether one parent had an extramarital affair influence how respondents would award custody? In the current studies, a representative sample of citizens awaiting jury service was first given a neutral scenario portraying an "average" family. Almost 80% favored dividing custodial time equally between the two parents, replicating earlier findings. Then, in Study 1, they were given a second, Test case, vignette in which either the mother or the father was said to have carried on an extramarital affair that "essentially ruined the marriage". In Study 2, either the mother or the father was said to have sought the divorce, opposed by the other, simply because he or she "grew tired" of the marriage. For both Test cases, our respondents awarded the offending parent significantly less parenting time; about half of our respondents in each Study. The findings indicate that many citizens feel both having an affair and growing tired of the marriage is sufficient cause to award decreased parenting time, reasons for which are explored in the discussion. Between 40 and 50 percent of marriages end in divorce (Cherlin, 2010). These divorces obviously affect children, although such effects vary in their magnitude, nature, and causal pathways (Amato, 2005;Bhrolchain, et al, 2000;Bhrolchain, 2001;Braver & Lamb, 2012Hetherington & Kelly, 2002;Lamb, 2012;Potter, 2010). Parental conflict, troubled parent-child relationships, and wholesale changes to their lives are risk factors for social, psychological, and educational difficulties in children, and are all associated with family breakdown (although whether divorce per se is the causative agent is more debatable, since these stressors often precede divorce; Chase-Lansdale, Cherlin, & Kiernan, 1995;Cherlin, Furstenberg, Chase-Lansdale, Kiernan, Robins, Morrison, & Teitler, 1991). Recent decades have seen renewed interest in strategies to reduce the risks associated with family breakdown.One possible lever is ensuring custodial arrangements that increase the prospects of the child retaining a healthy and supportive relationship with both parents (Amato, 2005;.Family law, including custody law, is inevitably affected by prevailing cultural values, possibly even more so than for many other areas of law. This influence can be demonstrated by examining the historical contexts during which shifts in the law occurred. Prior to around the second half of the nineteenth century, English family law was primarily concerned with the preservation of family estates, passed down through generations via the primogeniture rule favoring t...

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Section: Moral Intuitions About Fault Parenting and Child Custody Amentioning

confidence: 99%

Moral intuitions about fault, parenting, and child custody after divorce.

Votruba

Braver

Ellman

et al. 2014

Psychology, Public Policy, and Law

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The public often has a vested interest in sentencing, because it is the most visible part of the criminal justice system (Roberts & Stalans, 2000). It is commonly held that the public often favors harsher punishments for crimes than the criminal justice system actually imposes on offenders, because the public is often calling for severe punishments.…”

Section: Public Views Of Sentencing and Restorative Justicementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Research from a Colorado study showed that 14% of aggravated robbery offenders received community-based punishments were as 76% were incarcerated for their offenses. However, the public only favored incarceration 30% of the time and chose community based punishments such as probation almost 50% of the time (for a review of this literature see Roberts and Stalans, 2000). Moreover, another study showed that the public was far more supportive of community-based punishments than criminal justice professionals thought they (the public) would be (Immarigeon, 1986).…”

Section: Public Views Of Sentencing and Restorative Justicementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Secret and Johnson (1989) found that there has been a convergence of African-Americans' and Caucasians' attitudes toward sentencing since 1980. The differences that do emerge disappear when researchers controlled for socioeconomic, demographic, and political factors (Roberts & Stalans, 2000). Essentially, the differences between races were not attributed to race itself, but to other factors.…”

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confidence: 95%

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Public responsiveness to victim's recommendations in their sentencing decisions: Role of victim's race, victim impact statement and judge's instructions

Talbot

2011

PsycEXTRA Dataset

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“…Lors d'une enquête récente menée en Ontario, 79 % des répondants croyaient que le nombre de jeunes accusés d'homicide avait augmenté au fil des années . On retrouve les mêmes perceptions aux États-Unis (Robert et Stalans, 1997). En outre, le public estime non seulement que les sentences infligées aux jeunes sont trop clémentes , mais aussi que les tribunaux pour mineurs sont devenus plus indulgents ces dernières années (Robert et Stalans, 1997).…”

Section: Introductionunclassified