NCJ Number
207464
Journal
Crime & Delinquency Volume: 50 Issue: 4 Dated: October 2004 Pages: 590-614
Date Published
October 2004
Length
25 pages
Annotation
A factorial-design analysis of survey responses from a national sample of Israelis (n=731) was used to determine respondents' attitudes toward various plea-bargaining (PB) scenarios.
Abstract
Three PB scenarios, which varied randomly in their characteristics, were presented to each respondent during December 2002. The dependent variable was the respondent's level of support for the PB used in the scenario. Independent variables were judicial intervention, victim participation, and public disclosure of prosecutorial considerations. Seven of the 10 dimensions included in the scenarios and 7 variables regarding respondents' personal characteristics served as control variables. Contrary to common assumption and previous research, which has concluded that the general public opposes PB due primarily to its being hidden from the public, the current study found widely varying public views of PB processes. The strongest influence on public attitudes toward PB was whether the PB action produced sentences the respondents believed to be commensurate with the severity of the crime. The effect of increasing the openness of the PB processes to the public and the victim was minimal. This finding suggests that since the outcome of PB is to gain a conviction by offering a more lenient sentence than the defendant might receive if convicted through a formal trial, it is unlikely that a public interested in more punitive criminal justice policies will support PB policies that significantly reduce sentences for crimes the public views as serious. 3 tables, 8 notes, 54 references, and appended dimensions of the PB scenarios