Attributions for youth crime, accountability and legal competence
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/20093821211264441 |
| Pages | 127-139 |
| Date | 21 September 2012 |
| Published date | 21 September 2012 |
| Author | Karen Pfeffer,Maureen Maxwell,Amie Briggs |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Public policy & environmental management,Sociology |
Attributions for youth crime, accountability
and legal competence
Karen Pfeffer, Maureen Maxwell and Amie Briggs
Abstract
Purpose – The aims of this study are to examine the influence of offender age, offender abuse history,
crime outcome and attributions for crime on judgments about young offenders.
Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 240 British undergraduates was asked to respond to a
scenario about a young person who committed a crime, recommend a sentence, and rate the young
offender’s criminal accountability and legal understandings. Their attributions for crime were measured
using the CDS-II, adapted for observer attributions. The age of the young offender (ten years, 14 years,
or 17 years), abuse history (abused or not abused) and crime outcome (victim death or injury) were
varied systematically.
Findings – Internal attributions predicted participants’ beliefs about punishment and sentencing
recommendations. Although participants considered the youngest offenders to be less criminally
accountable and unlikely to understand the legal process, this did not affect recommended punishment.
Attributions of personal control were influenced by abuse history; the behavior of offenders with a history
of abuse was considered less within the offender’spersonal control.
Originality/value – The results demonstrate the types of attributions and information that influence the
opinions of jury-eligible British adults when asked to make decisions about serious offences committed
by young offenders.
Keywords Attributions, Youth crime, Young offenders, Legal competence, Criminals, United Kingdom,
Young adults, Punishment, Attitudes
Paper type Research paper
Public perceptions of the criminal responsibility of young offenders has attracted
much publicity in Britain in recent years and led to legislative changes (Hough and
Roberts, 2005). Roberts and Hastings (2007) asserted that the views of the general
public exert a strong influence on the criminal justice system. Studies of public opinions
about crime from both a psychological and criminological perspective have emphasized the
importance of people’s beliefs about the causes of criminal behavior (Sims, 2003). Often
such beliefs are measured within the framework of attribution theory (Heider, 1958; Weiner,
1995). Attribution theories conceptualize beliefs about the causes of behavior along several
dimensions, notably beliefs that causes of behavior are either internal or external to the
person (Heider, 1958), and whether causes are stable over time and controllable by the
person (Weiner, 1995). Attributions are considered to be an important factor influencing the
attitudes of legal professionals as well as lay people towards punishment (Sims, 2003).
With regards to young offenders, several studies have examined the effect of age on
opinions about the extent to which criminal responsibility and accountability should be
attributed to the young person or to external causes (Ghetti and Redlich, 2001; Hollin and
Howells, 1987; Leiber and Woodrich, 1997). Developmental psychologists have shown that
adolescents should be considered less culpable for criminal behavior than adults due to
their developing cognitive processes (Cauffman and Steinberg, 2000; Steinberg and Scott,
2003). Similar views have been found in studies of lay person opinions. For example,
DOI 10.1108/20093821211264441 VOL. 2 NO. 2 2012, pp. 127-139, QEmerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 2009-3829
j
JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY
j
PAGE 127
Karen Pfeffer is based in the
School of Psychology;
Maureen Maxwell is based
in the School of Social
Sciences; and Amie Briggs
is based in the School of
Psychology, all at the
University of Lincoln,
Lincoln, UK.
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