A Survey of Public Acceptance of Restitution as an Alternative to Imprisonment for Property Offenders*
| Date | 01 June 1984 |
| Published date | 01 June 1984 |
| Author | Burt Galaway |
| DOI | 10.1177/000486588401700206 |
108 (1984) 17
ANZJ
Crim
A SURVEY OF PUBLIC ACCEPTANCE OF RESTITUTION
AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO IMPRISONMENT FOR
PROPERTY OFFENDERS*
Burt Galaway**
Abstract
The proposition that the public willbe likely to accept a reduction in the use of
imprisonment as a penalty for property offenders if these offenders are required to
make restitution was tested through the use of simultaneously conducted surveys of
two random samples of 1200 persons each drawn from the New Zealand electoral
rolls. Both the control and experimental (restitution) groups were presented with
six crime incidents describing serious property crimes, were asked to indicate if
imprisonment or some other penalty was selected, were permitted to indicate one
or more penalties from descriptive statements representing fine, probation,
community service sentence, and non-residential periodic detention; the restitution
group was permitted to include restitution as a non-custodial penalty. Response
rates of 76% for the control group and 80% for the restitution group were achieved
from postal questionnaires. For all six crime incidents higher proportions of the
control than restitution group recommended imprisonment; the null hypothesis was
rejected at the .05 level for five of the six incidents (alpha =.094 for the null
hypothesis not rejected). Differences between the restitution and control groups
are found across most age groups, for both sexes, for New Zealand electors of
European descent, and for electors who reported that they had not been victimized
in the last year. Over 65% of the restitution group members recommending
non-custodial penalties selected restitution for each offender although they were
less likely to select restitution for the unemployed as compared to the employed
offender. This study provides support for the view that the public will accept a
reduction in the use of imprisonment for serious property offenders if there is a
concomitant increase in requiring these offenders to restore their victim losses.
There has been substantial growth in programmes designed to impose and
enforce an explicit restitution requirement on offenders since the establishment of
the Minnesota Restitution Centre in 1972.1The idea
that
an offender should be
required to repay his or her victim as a part of the penalty
~for
offending has been
piloted in a number of restitution projects in both the American juvenile and adult
systems.? Considerable interest in the concept has been generated in Canada",
Britain", Australia" and New Zealand", While the concept of requiring offenders to
redress the damage done has an inherent appeal to justice and fairness, the concept
has also received wide support from persons seeking alternatives to the use of
*This research was conducted while Dr Galaway served as a New Zealand National Research
Advisory Council senior research fellow assigned to the New Zealand Justice Department
(1982-1983). The points of view expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect
official policies of either the New Zealand Justice Department or the New Zealand National
Research Advisory Council.
** Associate Professor, School of Social Development, University of Minnesota, Duluth, Minnesota
55812, February 1983.
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