NCJ Number
184581
Date Published
2000
Length
122 pages
Annotation
The 1998 British Crime Survey collected information on public attitudes toward crime and criminal justice and added new questions on knowledge of juvenile delinquency and attitudes toward juvenile justice.
Abstract
More people were aware in 1998 than in 1996 that recorded crime was declining; however, 59 percent still thought it had increased between 1995 and 1995, when it declined by 10 percent. Nearly four-fifths of participants thought that 30 percent or more of recorded crime was violent, although violent crime accounts for only 12 percent of all crimes. Participants gave police the highest ratings and prisons the lowest ratings. They widely perceived juveniles as responsible for the majority of crime or at least as much as adults. The public also gave worse ratings to the juvenile courts than to any other part of the criminal justice system and thought that courts deal much too leniently with juvenile offenders. They supported restorative and reparative dispositions for juvenile first offenders and had more punitive attitudes toward persistent juvenile offenders. Having been a recent victim did not increase support for more punitive sentences. Overall, about two-thirds of victims in 1998 were willing to consider either a mediation meeting with their offender (41 percent) or receiving restitution from them (58 percent). Findings reconfirmed the need for improved dissemination to the public of information about crime and criminal justice. Figures; tables; footnotes; appended tables, methodological information, and instrument; list of other publications from the same organization; and 26 references