Punitiveness in six European countries

• In Event: Understanding punishment preferences in the public: New findings from the Central European Social Survey

Abstract

The countries of Central Europe are home to diverse penal cultures, but there is limited understanding of how the punishment preferences of their inhabitants compare. To address this gap, we turn to CESS - an interdisciplinary research project aimed at continuously tracking social change in Austria, Czechia, Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. As part of the criminological module, 11,383 respondents were presented with five crime scenarios involving acts of physical, sexual, and economic violence. They were then asked to recommend suitable sentences for each crime from a list of statutory penalties. We consider this approach a significant improvement over traditional methods of measuring punitiveness in large population surveys, such as questions about the death penalty or judicial leniency. This introductory presentation outlines the survey structure, details the data collection process, and presents descriptive comparisons across countries and crime scenarios.

Authors

• Paweł Ostaszewski, University of Warsaw and Institute of Justice, Poland

• Dagmara Woźniakowska, University of Warsaw

• Andrzej Uhl, University of Cambridge