ABSTRACT
Why should researchers care about how ordinary people think about punishment? First, people are citizens, and their opinions about what the criminal justice system should condemn have a claim to be considered when laws are passed. Second, when societies create legal codes that deviate from citizens’ moral intuitions, citizens often move toward disrespect for the credibility of the legal codes. They no longer feel that the laws are a good guide to right and wrong. The first question to ask is whether criminal codes sometimes contradict people’s sense of right and wrong. The authors review research about the crime of “attempt” that demonstrates the discrepancies between legal codes and the intuitions of citizens. Next, they summarize investigations on people’s motives for punishment, which illustrates that people’s punishment decisions are products of their intuitions rather than carefully reasoned decisions. Furthermore, the typical response to learning about a significant moral transgression is one of moral outrage, based on information about what offenders justly deserve for the wrongs committed. Put simply, people have a retributive response to crimes. The authors’ final studies, however, demonstrate that people also are willing to allow restorative justice procedures that are designed to restore harmony and are willing to make reductions in punishments inflicted on the transgressor if these restorative goals are met.
