Public Attitudes to Criminal History Sentencing Enhancements

• In Event: Attitudes Toward Sentencing Policies

Abstract

All US and foreign jurisdictions impose harsher sentences on repeat offenders. This is referred to as the Recidivist Sentencing Premium, or Criminal History Sentencing Enhancements. In the US guidelines, prior convictions play an important role in determining the severity of sentence imposed (Frase, Roberts, Mitchell and Hester, 2015; Roberts, 1997). Yet how much public support is there for this universal sentencing practice? This presentation summarises findings of previous surveys exploring public attitudes to the practice. We also report new findings from a 2016 survey of US repondents in which we explored public attitudes to different aspects of criminal history enhancements. For example, many US guidelines have no ‘look-back’ limits; all prior convictions count against an offender regardless of how long ago the convictions were recorded. In addition, many guidelines assign the same weight to all prior convictions, regardless of whether they were two years ago or much older. Our survey manipulated the age of the prior conviction and measured the associated level of public punitiveness. The implications of these findings for US and foreign sentencing systems are discussed.

Authors

• Julian Roberts, University of Oxford

• Rhys Hester, University of Minnesota Law School

• Richard Frase, University of Minnesota