Comparing sentencing judgments of judges and laypeople: The role of justifications.

ABSTRACT: There is a lack of understanding concerning the differences between laypeople's and professional judges' conceptions of justifications for sentencing. We conducted an online quasi-experimental study with 50 active judges and 200 laypeople. Participants were presented with a vignette describing severe child abuse leading to fatality and were asked to indicate a term of imprisonment for the father and the justification they would consider relevant when deciding on the sentence. A two-factor analysis of variance showed that laypeople disproportionately favored retribution compared to judges. This was reflected in the judges' higher scores for the other three justifications (incapacitation, general deterrence, rehabilitation). The Likert scales failed to detect any such differences. Furthermor

SUBMITTER: Watamura E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9678294 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature