An empirical study of the structure of public attitudes towards penal policy: How should we capture the public opinion?

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19H01425
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 05050:Criminal law-related
• Research Institution: Waseda University
• Principal Investigator: Matsuzawa Shin 早稲田大学, 法学学術院, 教授 (20350415)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 岡邊 健 京都大学, 教育学研究科, 教授 (40356209) ; 松原 英世 甲南大学, 法学部, 教授 (40372726)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: 法意識 / 刑罰政策 / 量刑 / 処罰感情 / 熟議民主主義

Outline of Final Research Achievements

First, we asked respondents (1) their opinions about crime using general questions such as those used in public opinion polls. The results showed that there was no certain trend in the responses depending on the respondents' political attitudes, gender, age, residential area, educational background, etc., that people with higher authoritarian tendencies tended to be more severely punished, and that people with higher authoritarian tendencies did not trust the courts. (2) The respondents were asked about their responses to crime in a more concrete form by showing examples. In this regard, the proportion of those who chose prison sentences decreased as the amount of information increased. Therefore, it can be said that "the amount of punishment that one is willing to use for a crime/offender decreases as the amount of information about the target crime increases/as the distance between the offender and the target crime increases".

Free Research Field

刑法

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究では、刑罰に関する国民の意識を高い解像度で明らかにした。すなわち、国民は厳罰化を求めていると言われるが、直感的な質問を用いたアンケート調査ではそのような結果が出る場合があるものの、刑罰に対する知識・情報量や、犯罪者・被告人についての知識・情報量を増やした上で、熟慮の上判断してもらうと、異なる結果が得られるのである。すなわち、犯罪者に対して厳しい刑罰で対応するのではなく、緩やかな刑罰を用いたいという結果が得られることがわかったのである。刑罰政策を決定するにあたっては、このような事実をもとにして行うことが期待されるであろう。