Sentencing Trends in Britain
Sentencing Trends in Britain
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英国的量刑趋势
DOI：
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发表时间：
1999
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Julian V. Roberts
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
M. Hough;Julian V. Roberts
过去三十年的民意研究一直表明，英国公众对犯罪分子持批评态度，这种批评独立于犯罪趋势，甚至刑事司法政策的巨大变化。这一发现表明，调查结果可能是这些调查所用方法的假象，或者公众舆论是在不了解实际做法的情况下形成的。1996年英国犯罪调查（BCS）中有一部分问题旨在检验这些假设。受访者被问及一系列问题，关于他们的知识，以及态度，判刑的做法和法官。结果表明，法官得到的负面评价明显多于任何其他刑事司法专业人员群体。公众系统地低估了量刑模式的严重性，这与对量刑者的态度密切相关。当被要求就一宗入屋犯法的具体案件提供判刑时，公众人士倾向于判处与现行判刑做法大致相同，甚至更为宽松的刑罚。讨论的重点是这些研究结果的政策影响，以及它们与其他司法管辖区的研究。
Research on public opinion over the past three decades has consistently established that the British public are critical of sentencers, and that this criticism exists independent of crime trends and even dramatic changes in criminal justice policies. This finding points to the possibilities that the findings are an artefact of the approach used by these surveys or that public opinion is formed in ignorance of actual practice. The 1996 British Crime Survey (BCS) contained a section of questions designed to test these hypotheses. Respondents were asked a series of questions about their knowledge of, as well as attitudes towards, sentencing practice and sentencers. Results indicate that judges received significantly more negative evaluations than any other group of criminal justice professionals. The public systematically under-estimate the severity of sentencing patterns, and this is significantly related to attitudes to sentencers. When asked to provide a sentence in a specific case of burglary, members of the public favoured sentences that were on balance little different from, and if anything more lenient than, current sentencing practice. Discussion focuses on the policy implications of these findings, as well as their relation to research in other jurisdictions.