The (Perceived) Seriousness of Crime and its Components: Opening the Black Box

• In Event: Perceived Crime Seriousness and Perceptions of Blame

Abstract

The seriousness of crime has long been a key concept in criminal law theory and in sentencing policies and practices of modern societies. Serious crime has also become an organizing concept in crime control policies. It is, however, unclear what the constitutive elements of crime seriousness are and whether the (‘real’) seriousness is, and should be, identified with the seriousness of crimes as perceived by the public. Against this policy background, the study is intended to fulfill two main aims: 1) to revitalize the line of research on perceived crime seriousness and investigate how people rank crimes in terms of seriousness, and 2) to conceptualize crime seriousness, identify its components, and assess the weight of these components in public judgments about crime seriousness. On the basis of the results of a large-scale survey in Flanders, we opened the black box of the complex seriousness concept and clarified, both normatively and empirically, which components of seriousness the public, scientists and policy-makers (ought to) care about.

Authors

• An Adriaenssen, University of Leuven

• Letizia Paoli, University of Leuven

• Stefaan Pleysier, University of Leuven