Peoples opinion on the punishments in the Icelandic Criminal Justice system
Criminal behaviour is said to be a learned behaviour and punishment is said to be most effective if presented immediately after the behaviour occurs. Studies have shown that recidivism rate it lower among those who have served their sentence with electronic monitoring (EM) or community service (CS). Both of those sanctions have shown to be motivating for the offenders to change to the better. Research on peoples’ opinions on punishment show that people generally find criminal sentences to be too mild. The number of participants in this study were 195, 63,3% women 36,4% men. All of them were 18 years old or older with the mean age of 44.72 years. They had to understand Icelandic very well and have general knowledge on the Icelandic justice system. The data was collected through survey, shared on Facebook, so the sample was self-selected. The results showed that 66,2% were supportive of using EM at the end of sentences but over half were opposed to the usage of EM as an enforcement of penalties. When looking at the results for the CS, 70,3% were supportive of offenders being able to apply for CS for sentences of 12 months or less and 83% were supportive of the sanction that judges would be able to sentences offenders to CS. The results on the questions on the maximum sentence, the majority wanted it higher and only 1% wanted it to be lower and the vast majority were opposed to the implementation of the Death penalty.
Sálfræði, Rafrænt eftirlit, Samfélagsþjónusta, Psychology, Electronic surveillance, Community service
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