Juror and community views of the guilty plea sentencing discount: Findings from a national Australian study
| DOI | 10.1177/1748895820956703 |
| Author | Lynne Roberts,Lorana Bartels,Karen Gelb,Caroline Spiranovic,Kate Warner |
| Date | 01 January 2022 |
| Published date | 01 January 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895820956703
Criminology & Criminal Justice
2022, Vol. 22(1) 78 –96
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1748895820956703
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Juror and community views
of the guilty plea sentencing
discount: Findings from a
national Australian study
Kate Warner
University of Tasmania, Australia
Caroline Spiranovic
University of Tasmania, Australia
Lorana Bartels
Australian National University, Australia
Lynne Roberts
Curtin University, Australia
Karen Gelb
University of Melbourne, Australia
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,
Corresponding author:
Lorana Bartels, Centre for Social Research and Methods, College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian
National University, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.
Email: lorana.bartels@anu.edu.au
956703CRJ0010.1177/1748895820956703Criminology & Criminal JusticeWarner et al.
research-article2020
Article
Warner et al. 79
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.
Keywords
Guilty plea discount, sentencing and public opinion, sex offence sentencing
Introduction
This paper examines Australian public attitudes to the guilty plea sentencing discount. A
plea of guilty is a long-accepted factor mitigating sentence in Australia, New Zealand,
England and Wales, Scotland, Canada and the United States. All Australian jurisdictions
except Tasmania have legislative provisions which require a sentencing court to take into
account the fact that an offender has pleaded guilty. In England and Wales, there is a
guideline for sentence reductions for a guilty plea (Sentencing Council for England and
Wales, 2017). Guilty plea discounts (regardless of whether the plea is motivated by
remorse) are commonly justified on the benefits that flow from providing an incentive to
plead guilty (Freiberg, 2014; Leverick, 2014).
While it is not always mandatory to award a sentencing discount for a guilty plea, it
is almost invariably the practice to do so and, in many jurisdictions, the judge may or
must state the amount of the discount if awarded. In some jurisdictions, there is also a
formal legislative or guideline scale for discounts, based on timing of the plea. In a study
of guilty plea cases in the Crown Court in England and Wales in 2011–2012, a sentence
reduction was awarded in all but 3% of the cases, with the most frequently awarded
reduction being one-third of the sentence (Roberts and Bradford, 2015). In the Australian
state of Victoria, research on pleas of guilty in the higher courts over a 5-year period
found that a guilty plea was ‘almost always viewed as a mitigating factor’ and the most
common discount for imprisonment sentences was 20%–30% (Victorian Sentencing
Advisory Council (VSAC, 2015: 59–60). A study in the Australian Capital Territory
(ACT) of Supreme Court sentencing decisions between January 2011 and June 2013
revealed a discount in all cases where the offender pleaded guilty, with an average reduc-
tion of 22% (Wren and Bartels, 2014).
Despite broad acceptance by courts and governments of a plea of guilty as a mitigat-
ing factor, academic debate over the merits of the discount is ongoing. Objections to the
guilty plea discount have targeted a range of issues, including that it can induce an inno-
cent person to plead guilty; it is unfair to, in effect, penalise those who elect to go to trial
when it is a fundamental human right to have the prosecution’s case proved beyond
reasonable doubt; it is unacceptable for a sentence that is considered by the judge to be
appropriate to the gravity of the crime and circumstances of the offender to be reduced
on the basis of something unrelated to the offending; awarding a discount does not
directly address the problem of delays; and there is insufficient empirical evidence of its
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