A new approach for ranking 'serious' offences. The use of paired-comparisons methodology

The non-consequentialist approach to punishment sentences on the basis of offence-seriousness. However, there has been little theoretical or empirical consideration of the notion of offence-seriousness. Identification of serious' offences tends to be commonsensical at best. Further, there is cu...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Francis, Brian (Author)
Contributors: Soothill, Keith 1941- ; Dittrich, Regina
Format: Print Article
Language:English
Published: 2001
In: The British journal of criminology
Year: 2001, Volume: 41, Issue: 4, Pages: 726-737
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Summary:The non-consequentialist approach to punishment sentences on the basis of offence-seriousness. However, there has been little theoretical or empirical consideration of the notion of offence-seriousness. Identification of serious' offences tends to be commonsensical at best. Further, there is currently no systematic way of measuring changes of seriousness over time. This study is a demonstration project displaying a way to investigate how the judiciary and the magistracy rank offence-seriousness in assessing actual cases. The use of paired-comparisons methodology provides a procedure which overcomes some problems of previous approaches. The method enables an assessment of the performance of judges and magistrates in terms of how they view the seriousness of offences without the artificiality of being involved in hypothesized field experiments
ISSN:0007-0955