Public perceptions of the seriousness of crime: Weighing the harm and the wrong

Abstract

The seriousness of crime or ‘crime seriousness’ bears on at least four areas of criminal policy (sentencing, criminalization, crime control and prevention) but is poorly defined. After providing a novel conceptualization of crime seriousness, this article explores the logic – or normative philosophical principles – behind the public’s assessment of crime seriousness and considers how the public’s logic aligns with legal principles and policy requirements. A general population survey administered in 2014 in Belgium and eliciting 1278 valid responses indicates that the public’s logic is more moralist than consequentialist and raises doubts about the validity of public perceptions of crime seriousness as an indicator of crime seriousness for policy-making.

Taking Crime Seriously: Conservation Values and Legal Cynicism as Predictors of Public Perceptions of the Seriousness of Crime

“…More recently, Adriaenssen et al (2018) extended Warr's (1989) concept of harmfulness, building on Greenfield and Paoli's (2013) harm assessment framework. They conceptualized seriousness in terms of 1) the wrongfulness of a crime, defined as the severity of the violation of moral norms and sentiments implied by a criminal activity, 2) the severity of the harms of a crime, defined as the gravity of the injury or damage that the crime inflicts, 3) the incidence of the crime, defined as the frequency with which this type of crime actually happens, and 4) the incidence of the harms of a crime, defined as the frequency with which a type or range of harms occurs.…”

“…In order to explain variation beyond consensus, most studies analyze sociodemographic characteristics (e.g., gender, age, socio-economic status, educational level and ethnicity; see Stylianou, 2003). A few also consider victimization experiences (e.g., Adriaenssen et al, 2018Rosenmerkel, 2001Wolfgang et al, 1985), generally finding that victimization does not impact seriousness ratings for most crimes.…”

“…This study addresses the latter two issues. Drawing on an innovative conceptualization of crime seriousness (see Adriaenssen et al, 2018), we examine the extent to which value patterns, attitudes and beliefs drive public crime seriousness perceptions and thus generate heterogeneity. Specifically, we consider the relevance of conservation values (Schwartz, 1994;Schwartz et al, 2012), legal cynicism (Sampson and Bartusch, 1998), and religiosity (Newman, 1976).…”

What Makes a Crime Serious? Testing Warr’s Model of Offence Seriousness

“…Empirical tests of this two-dimensional model have provided considerable empirical support (O'Connell & Wheelan, 1996;Rosenmerkel, 2001;Alter, Kernochan, & Darley, 2007;Fishman, Kraus & Cohen, 1986;Adriaenssen, Paoli, Karstedt, Visschers, Greenfield, & Pleysier, 2018), allowing it to become the dominant way of conceptualizing crime seriousness. And yet even the original study by Warr had reported that for some groups, and for some offences, the two-dimensional model may not be a good fit.…”

“…Findings also suggest that for some offences (such as common street crimes) seriousness is closely associated with wrongfulness, while for others (such as white collar offenses) it is closely associated with harmfulness (Rosenmerkel, 2001), suggesting that the construct of seriousness may rely on different set of evaluations for different types of offenses. In fact, a number of studies (Adriaenssen et al, 2018;Alter et al, 2007;O'Connell & Wheelan, 1996) have found wrongfulness to be a stronger predictor of offence seriousness, concluding that consequentialism is the less dominant approach to assessing the seriousness of crime.…”