Judges' perspective on the level of punishment

Abstract

Whether or not courts impose an adequate level of punishment, is an important issue in terms of sustaining the social order, maintaining the judicial system's legitimacy, and designing anti-crime policies. To assess the level of sentencing the study surveyed longitudinally, the perspectives of Israeli judges on the issue over a period of three decades. The results show that, consistently, the judges assessed the level of punishment as quite lenient. The results also suggest that no corrective action was taken over the three decades to adjust for the lenient sentencing either by the court system or by the judges themselves, who have the discretion to impose more sever sentences. A regression analysis revealed that court instance and tenure as a judge were related to the judges' assessments of punishment. The practical and theoretical implications of all these results are discussed.