Perceptions of Crime and Criminal Justice Institutions: Effects on Mock Jurors’ Sentencing Decisions in Capital Trials

• In Event: Fear of Crime, Punitiveness, and Punishment

Abstract

Purpose: Despite the importance of perceptions of crime and criminal justice institutions in the study of capital jurors, less is known how they collectively impact juror decision-making. Using a vignette survey experiment, this study examined how mock jurors’ sentencing decisions in a capital trial are influenced by their fear of crime, perceived crime risk, and distrust in criminal justice institutions. Methods: Death-qualified participants (N = 744) from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk acted as mock jurors and reviewed a trial summary in which the type of case and defendant ethnicity were experimentally manipulated. After reading a randomly assigned vignette, participants recommended the appropriate punishment for the defendant. Main findings: Mock jurors with higher fear of crime and perceived crime risk were more likely to support punitive sentencing decisions. Although distrust in criminal justice institutions did not directly influence sentencing decisions, its indirect effect was significant through its associations with perceptions of crime. Higher levels of distrust in criminal justice institutions were associated with increased perceptions of crime risk and fear of crime, which in turn led to more punitive decisions. Conclusions: Findings highlight the important roles of jurors’ perceptions of crime and criminal justice institutions in shaping their decisions.

Authors

• Jimin Pyo, California State University, Northridge

• Cooper A. Maher, University of Cincinnati