Purposes of Sentencing and Predictors of Punitiveness
25 July 2011
The Sentencing Advisory Council has released two reports on community views of sentencing in Victoria. The reports are based on the Victorian component of a national survey of public attitudes to sentencing, supported by the Australian Research Council.
The first report examines how punitive people are, based on responses from 1,200 survey respondents. The report shows that Victorians are moderately punitive and that higher levels of punitiveness are found among:
- people who feel that current sentences are too lenient
- people who believe that judges should reflect public opinion when sentencing
- those who feel that crime has increased
- those with lower levels of confidence in sentencing.
Punitiveness is also higher among people whose main source of information is commercial/tabloid media, people with no tertiary education and people who describe themselves as politically conservative.
The second report examines community views of the purposes of sentencing. The results show that respondents’ preferences for the purposes of sentencing vary according to different offence/offender combinations.The most important purpose of sentencing for young offenders and for first-time offenders is rehabilitation, while for adults and repeat offenders the most important purpose is punishment.
Together, the two reports show that community views on sentencing are complex, and that giving people more information, such as specific case studies, allows more nuanced responses to survey questions.
The Predictors of Punitiveness and Purposes of Sentencing papers are available from this website.
