Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

which the severity of the sanction matches the sever-

ity of the harm done and the culpability of the

offender. Research shows that retributive justice is the

main goal that the public wants to achieve for serious

violent crimes. However, felony murder laws and

other laws that hold offenders who committed the

crime (principals) and those who helped in less direct

ways (accessories) to the same punishment also are

incongruent with public views of justice. The public

prefers that principals receive longer prison terms

than accessories and thus negates the law’s equality

principle in favor of proportional retributive justice.

At the same time, for nonviolent offenders, the pub-

lic supports restorative justice, which now is part of

several countries’ sentencing schemes. Restorative jus-

tice emphasizes community-based sanctions that allow

offenders to be reintegrated as productive, law-abiding

citizens more easily but that require offenders to accept

responsibility and make amends for the harm done,

express sincere remorse, and provide restitution to the

victims. Thus, community service and restitution that

are directly related to the harm done are examples of

restorative sanctions. Combinations of community-

based sanctions can be used to achieve restorative jus-

tice. Both restorative justice and retributive justice are

based on fairness, though restorative justice considers

fairness toward the victim, the offender, and society.

Evidence for support of restorative justice is quite con-

sistent throughout the world.For example, numerous

studies have asked respondents to choose between

community-based alternatives and prison in sentencing

specific nonviolent criminal offenders; the majority of

the public across European and North American coun-

tries chose community-based alternatives. Of the

community-based sanctions, restitution and commu-

nity service orders have the most support because

these sanctions address the needs of the victim and

allow close monitoring of the offender in the commu-

nity, whereas standard probation is the least supported.

For several years, from 1989 to 2000, the International

Crime Victimization Survey asked respondents to sen-

tence a repeat 21-year-old burglar. Almost three

fourths of New Zealanders; about two thirds of resi-

dents of Australia, Britain, Canada, Finland, and the

Netherlands; about half of U.S. citizens and Latin

Americans; 40% of residents of Asian countries; and

about 30% of residents of Africa recommended

community-based alternatives (typically a community

service order). In 15 Eastern European countries,

endorsement of community service rather than impris-

onment for the repeat burglar has increased across

time, with a divided public in 1992, but by 2000, about

72% of the public endorsed community service. These

findings show widespread support for restorative jus-

tice for the serious property crime of burglary and sug-

gest that Europeans have the strongest support,

whereas less industrialized countries have the least

support, for community-based alternatives.

Mandatory Minimum Prison

Terms and Retributive Justice

In recent decades, politicians have enacted statutes

that provide longer mandatory minimum prison terms

for many offenses or longer prison terms for repeat

offenders. These statutes are based on the goal of ret-

ributive justice—providing punishment that is propor-

tional to the seriousness and harmfulness of the

offense. The public shows strong support for punish-

ing adult offenders based on seriousness of the crime,

particularly those convicted of serious crimes of vio-

lence. However, based on vignette and video studies,

the public prefers more flexibility in meting out jus-

tice than retributive justice systems allow. The major-

ity of the public attends to individual characteristics,

such as the offender’s potential to be rehabilitated,

employment status, criminal history, and so forth. For

example, in response to realistic videotaped sentenc-

ing hearings, laypersons, compared with judges (and

with statutorily required mandatory minimum prison

terms), gave less severe sentences and were less likely

to choose prison sentences for a repeat residential bur-

glar, a cocaine dealer, and a mugger who caused an

elderly woman to fall and break her hip when he stole

her purse. Moreover, when offenders had a substance

abuse problem and asked for treatment, laypersons

overwhelmingly recommended court-mandated sub-

stance abuse treatment, whereas judges were more

likely to recommend prison terms to achieve retribu-

tive justice or deterrence. Thus, researchers have char-

acterized the public as supporting “individualized

proportionality” in that the public assigns harsher

punishment to more severe crimes but also considers

the individual circumstances surrounding the crime in

meting out justice.

In the past three decades, the U.S. government has

engaged in a “war on drugs”; national survey data indi-

cate that the public is quite skeptical that this govern-

ment effort will reduce crime rates and believes that

the sentences are too severe. For example, the U.S.

federal sentencing guidelines’ mandatory minimum

prison time for drug possession is incongruent with the

660 ———Public Opinion About Sentencing and Incarceration

P-Cutler (Encyc)-45463.qxd 11/18/2007 12:43 PM Page 660