Dispelling Some of the Myths about Sentencing
The Sentencing Advisory Council’s More Myths and Misconceptions research paper updates findings reported in the Council’s 2006 Myths and Misconceptions: Public Opinion versus Public Judgment about Sentencing.
The original Myths and Misconceptions paper examined local and international attitudes towards sentencing. Its key finding was that, when asked a simple, abstract question, people believed that sentences were too lenient, but when given more information about a crime or offender, people’s levels of punitiveness dropped dramatically.
More Myths and Misconceptions considers the most recent research about public opinion on sentencing. It revisits some of the key findings of the original Myths and Misconceptions paper in light of this new research.
Also available is an associated paper, Measuring Public Opinion about Sentencing. This paper considers issues of methodology that arise when measuring informed public opinion about sentencing.