When punishment goals moderate and mediate the effect of clinical reports on the recidivism risk on prison sentences

Abstract

This research examined whether an individual’s endorsement of punishment goals moderates and mediates the effect of a clinical assessment of recidivism risk on the length of prison sentences. We measured participants’ endorsement of punishment goals, both before they read a criminal case (i.e. a priori endorsement), and after they had read it (i.e. case-specific endorsement). As expected, the effect of the clinical report’s conclusion on participants’ sentencing decisions was moderated by a priori endorsement of incapacitation as a punishment goal. Participants who expressed strong (versus weak) a priori endorsement of this punishment goal were influenced by the report’s conclusion on the risk of recidivism. In addition, when the clinical report concluded that the offender had a high risk of recidivating, participants expressed greater case-specific motivation to incapacitate him. Finally, the clinical report’s conclusion had an indirect effect on the severity of the sentence through case-specific endorsement of the incapacitation punishment goal.

Keywords:

• clinical report
• incapacitation
• jury decision making
• punishment goals
• risk of recidivism
• sentence

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Notes

1 Civil commitment is a process in which the judge can decide to send offenders who are considered to be dangerous to society to a psychiatric hospital.

2 Participants also rated other items that are not relevant to the present paper. The authors will supply these items upon request.

3 In this study, we did not study the impact of the combination of the different goals of punishment on the sentence. Although this issue has already received attention (see, for example, Niang et al., 2019), we believe that this issue should be further explored in future research.

4 It should be pointed out that during the French criminal trial, the prosecutor, who represents the interests of society, is required to recommend a sentence. However, jurors remain subject to the oath they have taken and so 'to decide according to the charges and the means of defence, according to [their] conscience and [their] intimate conviction with the impartiality and firmness required for a worthy and free man' (Article 304 of the French Code of Criminal Procedure).

5 We also examined whether other a priori punishment goals moderated the effect of the clinical report on the sentence. None of the interactions between the report’s conclusions and the other a priori punishment goals (retribution, rehabilitation and deterrence) was significant for either the minimum sentence (ps > .280) or the preferred sentence (ps > .074). For the maximum sentence, the interaction between the report’s conclusion and a priori endorsement of rehabilitation and deterrence was also not significant (ps > .240), but we found a significant interaction between the report’s conclusion and a priori endorsement of retribution, β = 0.40, t = 2.62, p = .010, 95% CI [0.09, 0.71]. The conditional effects showed that participants who strongly endorsed the retribution goal (+1 SD) chose longer maximum sentences in the high recidivism risk condition, β = 1.08, t = 2.24, p = .027, 95% CI [0.12, 2.04]. This effect was not significant for participants who moderately or weakly endorsed retribution (β = 0.18, t = 0.53, p = .596, 95% CI [−0.49, 0.84] β = −0.72, t = −1.51, p = .135, 95% CI [−1.67, 0.23], respectively).

6 We cannot exclude the possibility that additional information suggesting the offender's difficulties in controlling his or her emotions (in the high recidivism risk condition) may also have played a mitigating role in sentencing. Nevertheless, since the conclusions of a clinical report are generally detailed, this information was, in our opinion, necessary to ensure the credibility of the expertise.