CONCLUDORY NOTES ON JUST DESSERT

Just deserts, as a philosophy of punishment, stipulates that criminal sanctions should be commensurate
( the quantum of punishment must need no exceed the quantum of offence) with the seriousness of the
offense. In the Midwest the severity of punishment awarded to the felony offenders in a large urban
jurisdiction originates on two dimensions of criminal sanction which needed to be examined to
understand severity of punishment statement:

 the type of sanction received and the length of sentence.

 the frequency and visibility of crime are linked to punishment severity.

Crime visibility is a good predictor both of judicial decisions to incarcerate and of the length of term of
probation. Crime frequency, on the other hand, has little predictive power. Therefore my observation
drew this conclusion that judges in the jurisdiction are guided by a modified just deserts philosophy in
their sentencing decisions.

A systematic sample of felony cases, obtained from prosecutor records, that were adjudicated in 1983
in a large, urban jurisdiction we call “Midwest City. These data are used to examine and make inferences
about the sentencing behavior of judges in the jurisdiction. We are particularly interested in the severity
of punishment meted out to felony offenders. In examining the severity of punishment received by
these offenders, we argue that punishment severity consists of two dimensions.

 The first is qualitative in nature and involves the type of sanction the offender receives (for
example: prison, probation, fine, or restitution).
 The second dimension is quantitative in nature and is represented by the length of the term of
sanction. Punishment severity is then linked with what we describe as the “frequency” of crime
in the community and with the “visibility” of these crimes.

Finally, in interpreting judicial sentencing behavior, my observation analysis includes that judges in
the jurisdiction follow a “just deserts” philosophy of sentencing in which highly visible crimes are
more likely to receive severe punishment (incarceration), and low visibility crimes are less likely to
receive this sanction (when the researchers stalks about crime seriousness).