Attitudes Towards Crime and Punishment in Vermont: Public Opinion About an Experiment with Restorative Justice

摘要

In 1994, the State of Vermont Department of Corrections (DOC) asked Doble Research Associates to conduct a benchmark study of public opinion about crime and corrections in that state. Doble Research is a nonpartisan, public interest research firm that specializes in exploring the public's thinking about complex policy issues before and after people learn more about them. The firm's clients are chiefly foundations, government agencies, and other public service organizations. The 1994 study found: Low public confidence in virtually the entire criminal justice system; A huge majority, 75 percent, in favor of totally reviewing and changing the way Vermont deals with convicted criminals; An even larger majority, an astonishing 92 percent, in favor of a concept that the DOC had on the drawing board: establishing a statewide network of community-based reparative boards; and Broad public willingness to use nonincarcerative sanctions with an array of nonviolent offenders.