17 results on '"Spiranovic, Caroline"'
Search Results
2. Mandatory sentencing?: Use [with] discretion
- Author
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Warner, Kate, Spiranovic, Caroline, Freiberg, Arie, and Davis, Julia
- Published
- 2018
3. What predicts punitiveness?: an examination of predictors of punitive attitudes towards offenders in Australia
- Author
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Spiranovic, Caroline A., Roberts, Lynne D., and Indermaur, David
- Published
- 2012
4. Juror and community views of the guilty plea sentencing discount: Findings from a national Australian study.
- Author
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Warner, Kate, Spiranovic, Caroline, Bartels, Lorana, Roberts, Lynne, and Gelb, Karen
- Subjects
- *
GUILTY pleas , *JURORS , *CUSTODIAL sentences , *CHILD sexual abuse , *PUBLIC opinion - Abstract
A plea of guilty is a long-accepted factor mitigating sentence in many countries, including Australia, although academic debate over the merits and application of the discount is ongoing. This paper presents findings from a national Australian study on public opinion on the guilty plea sentencing discount, with a particular focus on sexual offences. Survey data were drawn from 989 jurors in cases that resulted in a guilty verdict and 450 unempanelled jurors and 306 online respondents who were provided with vignettes based on real cases. A third of the respondents would have supported a discount in their case if the offender had pleaded guilty. In contrast, more than one half of the respondents surveyed, who had received a vignette with a guilty plea scenario, supported an increment in sentence if the offender had gone to trial. There was more support for a discount in cases involving non-sexual violent offences versus sexual offences and adult versus child victims. Where a discount was supported, this most commonly was a reduction in the length of custodial sentence, with online respondents allocating the least generous discounts. Willingness to accept a sentencing discount was predicted by a range of variables including gender, education, punitive attitudes, offence type and offence seriousness. We conclude by considering the implications of our findings for sentencing law and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2022
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
5. What does the public think about sex offender registers? Findings from a national Australian study.
- Author
-
Bartels, Lorana, Gelb, Karen, Spiranovic, Caroline, Warner, Kate, Roberts, Lynne, and Davis, Julia
- Subjects
SEX offenders ,SEX offender registration ,PUBLIC support ,PUBLIC opinion ,JUDICIAL discretion - Abstract
This article presents data from questions about sex offender registration orders in a large national survey on Australian public opinion about adult sex offenders. It outlines the legislative frameworks that govern these registers in Australia and discusses the use of public registers, the research on the effectiveness of sex offender registers, and Australian attitudes to such registers. Our surveys of three cohorts of members of the Australian public reveal strong public support for sex offender registers, especially for cases involving child victims. However, there was also support for judicial discretion in the imposition of orders and reduced support for automatic registration where a non-custodial sentence is imposed. The Australian Government has recently announced the establishment of a national public sex offender register, but our findings show limited support for this approach. The implications for policy and practice are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2021
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
6. Why sentence? Comparing the views of jurors, judges and the legislature on the purposes of sentencing in Victoria, Australia.
- Author
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Warner, Kate, Davis, Julia, Spiranovic, Caroline, Cockburn, Helen, and Freiberg, Arie
- Subjects
CRIMINAL sentencing ,JURORS ,LEGISLATIVE bodies - Abstract
In recent times, parliaments have introduced legislation directing judges to take defined purposes into account when sentencing. At the same time, judges and politicians also acknowledge that sentencing should vindicate the values of the community. This article compares the views on the purposes of sentencing of three major participants in the criminal justice system: legislators who pass sentencing statutes, judges who impose and justify sentences and jurors who represent the community. A total of 987 Australian jurors in the Victorian Jury Sentencing Study (2013–2015) were asked to sentence the offender in their trial and to choose the purpose that best justified the sentence. The judges' sentencing remarks were coded and the results were compared with the jurors' surveys. The research shows that, in this jurisdiction, the views of the judges, the jurors and the legislators are not always well aligned. Judges relied on general deterrence much more than jurors and jurors selected incapacitation as the primary purpose in only about a fifth of 'serious offender' cases where parliament has provided that community protection must be the principal purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2019
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
7. Measuring jurors’ views on sentencing: Results from the second Australian jury sentencing study.
- Author
-
Warner, Kate, Davis, Julia, Spiranovic, Caroline, Cockburn, Helen, and Freiberg, Arie
- Subjects
CRIMINAL sentencing ,CRIMINAL judgments ,CRIMINAL procedure ,JURY decision making ,LEGAL status of jurors - Abstract
This paper presents the results of the Victorian Jury Sentencing Study which aimed to measure jurors’ views on sentencing. The study asked jurors who had returned a guilty verdict to propose a sentence for the offender, to comment on the sentence given by the judge in their case and to give their opinions on general sentencing levels for different offence types. A total of 987 jurors from 124 criminal trials in the County Court of Victoria participated in this mixed-method and multi-phased study in 2013–2015. The results are based on juror responses to the Stage One and Stage Two surveys and show that the views of judges and jurors are much more closely aligned than mass public opinion surveys would suggest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2017
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
8. Social Media Sentiment Analysis: A New Empirical Tool for Assessing Public Opinion on Crime?
- Author
-
Prichard, Jeremy, Watters, Paul, Krone, Tony, Spiranovic, Caroline, and Cockburn, Helen
- Subjects
PUBLIC opinion ,SOCIAL media ,SENTIMENT analysis ,ONLINE social networks ,CRIME - Abstract
'Big data' presents many interesting opportunities and challenges. This article focuses on the potential use of social media sentiment analysis as a legitimate tool for criminological research to better understand public perceptions of crime problems and public attitudes to responses to crime. While a degree of scepticism should always apply to the use of unsubstantiated sources on the internet, SMSA is likely to be a rich source of valuable information. Observational SMSA research presents low-level risks in terms of human research ethics principally because the information derived is unlikely to lead to the identification of research subjects. It is arguable, but less certain, that material posted publicly online does not attract a reasonable expectation of privacy for the author. However, the strength of this argument may depend on the particular circumstances in which the material to be analysed was posted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2015
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
9. Are Judges Out of Touch?
- Author
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Warner, Kate, Davis, Julia, Walter, Maggie, and Spiranovic, Caroline
- Subjects
PUBLIC opinion ,COURTS ,JUDGES ,JURORS ,JUDICIAL discretion - Abstract
Media claims and public opinion surveys suggest that there is a popular perception that judges are out of touch with what ordinary people think. This view is linked with punitiveness and confidence in the courts; those who think that judges are out of touch are also more likely to think that sentences are too lenient and less likely to have confidence in the courts. This article reports on a mixed methods study of the views of jurors, analysing data emanating from the question: 'How in touch do you think judges are with public opinion on sentencing?' The findings provide a striking contrast with those from public surveys. Most jurors in the quantitative phase did not agree that judges were out of touch with public opinion on sentencing. Some of those who did think that judges were out of touch indicated in qualitative interviews that this was not necessarily a criticism, or suggested that 'being out of touch' did not apply to the judge in their trial. The implication we draw from these results is that the findings from public opinion surveys suggesting that judges are out of touch need to be viewed with caution, rather than being treated as evidence of the need for constraints on judicial discretion and the introduction of harsher sentences. More broadly, we show the importance of employing mixed research methods that can uncover more fully the range and depth of public opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2014
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
10. Public preferences for sentencing purposes: What difference does offender age, criminal history and offence type make?
- Author
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Spiranovic, Caroline A., Roberts, Lynne D., Indermaur, David, Warner, Kate, Gelb, Karen, and Mackenzie, Geraldine
- Subjects
- *
PUBLIC opinion , *CRIMINAL sentencing , *CRIMINALS , *CRIMINAL records , *UTILITARIANISM - Abstract
Preferences of 800 randomly selected Australians for retributive and utilitarian sentencing purposes were examined in response to brief crime scenarios where offender age, offence type and offender history were systematically varied. Respondents selected rehabilitation as the most important purpose for first-time, young and burglary offenders. Punishment was endorsed as most important for repeat, adult and serious assault offenders. Multinomial logistic regression analysis revealed that offence history was a stronger predictor of public preferences than offender age or offence type; the odds of choosing rehabilitation compared with punishment were significantly increased by a factor of 6.1 for cases involving first-time offenders. It appears that when given specific cases to consider, the public takes an approach akin to that taken by the sentencing courts as they weigh up the importance of the various purposes for the case at hand. Public preferences are thus broadly consistent with current law and sentencing practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2012
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
11. A matter of judgement: The effect of information and deliberation on public attitudes to punishment.
- Author
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Indermaur, David, Roberts, Lynne, Spiranovic, Caroline, Mackenzie, Geraldine, and Gelb, Karen
- Subjects
SOCIAL attitudes ,PUNISHMENT ,CRIMINAL justice system ,ALTERNATIVES to imprisonment ,REHABILITATION of criminals - Abstract
The idea of reducing public punitiveness through providing information and encouraging deliberation has attracted considerable interest. However, there remains no solid evidence of durable changes in attitude. The study presented here provides a test of the hypothesis that information combined with deliberation can affect general measures of punitiveness, confidence in the courts and acceptance of alternatives to imprisonment (the three dependent variables). The study involved a pre-test, post-test experimental design. Participants were randomly allocated to either an intervention group or a control condition. Statistically significant changes in the dependent variables were observed immediately following the intervention but these changes were not sustained when measured at follow-up nine months later. Further, at the time of the follow-up the differences between the control group scores and the intervention group scores were not significantly different. The observed changes immediately following the intervention are seen to be a function of the changed relationship of the respondent to the task. The implications of the results for integrating public perspectives into policy are discussed. It is argued that rather than a focus on public education, a more productive direction is to focus on the way the public is engaged on matters concerning punishment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2012
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
12. Sentencing and public confidence: Results from a national Australian survey on public opinions towards sentencing.
- Author
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Mackenzie, Geraldine, Spiranovic, Caroline, Warner, Kate, Stobbs, Nigel, Gelb, Karen, Indermaur, David, Roberts, Lynne, Broadhurst, Rod, and Bouhours, Thierry
- Subjects
- *
CRIMINAL sentencing , *PUBLIC support , *LENIENCY (Law) , *PUBLIC opinion , *TELEPHONE surveys , *IMPRISONMENT , *CRIME - Abstract
This paper examines the critical issue of public confidence in sentencing, and presents findings from Phase I of an Australia-wide sentencing and public confidence project. Phase I comprised a nationally representative telephone survey of 6005 participants. The majority of respondents expressed high levels of punitiveness and were dissatisfied with sentences imposed by the courts. Despite this, many were strongly supportive of the use of alternatives to imprisonment for a range of offences. These nuanced views raise questions regarding the efficacy of gauging public opinion using opinion poll style questions; indeed the expected outcome from this first phase of the four phase sentencing and public confidence project. The following phases of this project, reported on elsewhere, examined the effects of various interventions on the robustness and nature of these views initially expressed in a standard ‘top of the head’ opinion poll. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2012
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
13. A country not divided: A comparison of public punitiveness and confidence in sentencing across Australia.
- Author
-
Roberts, Lynne D, Spiranovic, Caroline, and Indermaur, David
- Subjects
- *
LEGISLATION , *PUBLIC opinion , *CRIMINAL sentencing , *TELEPHONE surveys , *JURISDICTION , *IMPRISONMENT rates , *AUSTRALIAN states - Abstract
Changes to sentencing legislation are often introduced or justified on the basis of satisfying public opinion. If sentencing policy is a reflection of public opinion we should see a concordance between different sentencing policies and public opinion. This paper provides a comparison between Australian States and Territories in terms of two key measures of public attitude concerning sentencing: confidence in sentencing and punitiveness. These results are based on acomprehensive telephone survey (N = 6005) of Australian adults which utilized a stratified random sample of households from the Electronic White Pages. It was found that there were only minor differences in the key measures of public attitude despite the notable differences between the States and Territories of Australia with respect to sentencing policy. Differences in public attitudes across jurisdictions were small, accounting for less than 2 per cent of variation in confidence in sentencing and punitive attitudes scores. In addition, despite the predicted moderately negative association between confidence in sentencing and punitiveness, neither of these variables was related in any systematic way to jurisdictional differences in imprisonment rates. The major implication of these findings is that the wide differences in sentencing practice and policy between jurisdictions in Australia are not linked to differences in public attitudes, supporting Beckett's (1997) argument that sentencing policy is better understood as a function of political initiative rather than a direct articulation of public attitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2011
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
14. What does the public think about sex offender registers? Findings from a national Australian study
- Author
-
Lynne D. Roberts, Karen Gelb, Kate Warner, Lorana Bartels, Julia Davis, Caroline Spiranovic, Bartels, Lorana, Gelb, Karen, Spiranovic, Caroline, Warner, Kate, Roberts, Lynne, and Davis, Julia
- Subjects
Register (sociolinguistics) ,Judicial discretion ,sex offender registers ,sentencing ,Criminology ,Public opinion ,jurors ,050105 experimental psychology ,Pathology and Forensic Medicine ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Government ,business.industry ,Sex offender ,050901 criminology ,05 social sciences ,Australia ,Legislature ,Articles ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,public opinion ,Psychology (miscellaneous) ,0509 other social sciences ,Public support ,business ,Law ,Sentence - Abstract
This article presents data from questions about sex offender registration orders in a large national survey on Australian public opinion about adult sex offenders. It outlines the legislative frameworks that govern these registers in Australia and discusses the use of public registers, the research on the effectiveness of sex offender registers, and Australian attitudes to such registers. Our surveys of three cohorts of members of the Australian public reveal strong public support for sex offender registers, especially for cases involving child victims. However, there was also support for judicial discretion in the imposition of orders and reduced support for automatic registration where a non-custodial sentence is imposed. The Australian Government has recently announced the establishment of a national public sex offender register, but our findings show limited support for this approach. The implications for policy and practice are considered. Refereed/Peer-reviewed
- Published
- 2022
15. Why sentence? Comparing the views of jurors, judges and the legislature on the purposes of sentencing in Victoria, Australia
- Author
-
Kate Warner, Julia Davis, Arie Freiberg, Caroline Spiranovic, H Cockburn, Warner, Kate, Davis, Julia, Spiranovic, Caroline, Cockburn, Helen, and Freiberg, Arie
- Subjects
Jurisdiction ,media_common.quotation_subject ,05 social sciences ,juries ,Legislation ,Legislature ,16. Peace & justice ,0506 political science ,Statute ,Jury ,Political science ,Law ,Deterrence (psychology) ,public opinion ,050602 political science & public administration ,050501 criminology ,sentencing purposes ,judges ,Sentence ,0505 law ,Criminal justice ,media_common - Abstract
In recent times, parliaments have introduced legislation directing judges to take defined purposes into account when sentencing. At the same time, judges and politicians also acknowledge that sentencing should vindicate the values of the community. This article compares the views on the purposes of sentencing of three major participants in the criminal justice system: legislators who pass sentencing statutes, judges who impose and justify sentences and jurors who represent the community. A total of 987 Australian jurors in the Victorian Jury Sentencing Study (2013–2015) were asked to sentence the offender in their trial and to choose the purpose that best justified the sentence. The judges’ sentencing remarks were coded and the results were compared with the jurors’ surveys. The research shows that, in this jurisdiction, the views of the judges, the jurors and the legislators are not always well aligned. Judges relied on general deterrence much more than jurors and jurors selected incapacitation as the primary purpose in only about a fifth of ‘serious offender’ cases where parliament has provided that community protection must be the principal purpose. Refereed/Peer-reviewed
- Published
- 2019
16. Measuring jurors’ views on sentencing: Results from the second Australian jury sentencing study
- Author
-
Kate Warner, Julia Davis, Caroline Spiranovic, H Cockburn, Arie Freiberg, Warner, Kate, Davis, Julia, Spiranovic, Caroline, Cockburn, Helen, and Freiberg, Arie
- Subjects
punitiveness ,business.industry ,media_common.quotation_subject ,05 social sciences ,sentencing ,County court ,Criminology ,Public opinion ,Jury ,public opinion ,050501 criminology ,Verdict ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,business ,Psychology ,Law ,Social psychology ,Social Sciences (miscellaneous) ,Sentence ,050104 developmental & child psychology ,0505 law ,media_common - Abstract
This paper presents the results of the Victorian Jury Sentencing Study which aimed to measure jurors’ views on sentencing. The study asked jurors who had returned a guilty verdict to propose a sentence for the offender, to comment on the sentence given by the judge in their case and to give their opinions on general sentencing levels for different offence types. A total of 987 jurors from 124 criminal trials in the County Court of Victoria participated in this mixed-method and multi-phased study in2013–2015. The results are based on juror responses to the Stage One and Stage Two surveys and show that the views of judges and jurors are much more closely aligned than mass public opinion surveys would suggest. Refereed/Peer-reviewed
- Published
- 2016
17. Mandatory sentencing? Use [with] discretion
- Author
-
Julia Davis, Caroline Spiranovic, Kate Warner, Arie Freiberg, Warner, Kate, Spiranovic, Caroline, Freiberg, Arie, and Davis, Julia
- Subjects
Mandatory sentencing ,Sociology and Political Science ,business.industry ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Context (language use) ,Discretion ,Public opinion ,Jury ,Argument ,mandatory sentences ,sentencing discretion ,public opinion ,Psychology ,business ,Law ,media_common ,Law and economics - Abstract
When asked about sentencing discretion and mandatory sentences, jurors participating in the Victorian Jury Sentencing Study expressed strong support for sentencing discretion and weak support for mandatory sentences despite a belief by jurors that, in general, sentences are too lenient. This strengthens the argument that polls that pose a general question about mandatory sentences or sentencing severity divorced from the context of a specific case are an inadequate and misleading measure of public opinion Refereed/Peer-reviewed
- Published
- 2018
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