THE FUNCTIONS OF PUNISHMENT AND THE RESPECT OF RULES ACCORDING TO PSYCHOLOGY AND LAW STUDENTS
Elisabetta Mandrioli, University of Bologna
Purposes and method
This work shows the results of a research on opinions about the function of punishment and the reasons why juridical rules are respected.
This research was made on a sample of 101 people, 47 Psychology students and 54 Law students from the University of Bologna.
Opportunities of encounter between operators of the two fields are more and more frequent; this is why we found it interesting to know future-psychologists and future-lawyers’ opinions about matters on which they could be asked to express their point of view and take decisions in the future.
— We tried to focus what the most widespread opinions are:
— Moreover, we made an analysis on the possibility of a relationship between people’s opinions on the function of punishment and their explanations of the reasons for respecting the law.
&127; Finally, we investigated whether or not there is a relationship between:
— We investigated if the students’ opinions were different depending on their field of study.
· We thought, in particular, that studies in psychology could make people pay more attention to the re-educational purposes of penal action; these purposes consider, at least theoretically, the possibility of a change in the psychological conditions of the criminal and his/her reinstatement in the social body.
– Moreover, we explored the effects of the salience of the future professional role, which was analyzed by means of two different versions of the questionnaire instructions:
- the first one was focused on the field of studies of the students filling in the questionnaire and answers were supposed to be related to the respondent’s future professional role (the instructions were " We are doing a research in order to know how a "future-psychologist" or a "future-lawyer" would answer the following questions …"). These instructions were also meant to let people know that the research was addressed both to Psychology and Law students.
- the other one asked the students to answer as common citizens, according to their personal opinions (the instructions were "…how citizens would answer…").
· We assumed that the students’ elaboration of the information given by the questions in the list could be affected by the fact of making salient for them the scheme of professional self (related to their knowledge and experiences in the professional field) and that effects of this could be seen in the answers; the "salience of the future role" factor (also as the explicit comparison between two groups of people belonging to different fields of study) could also lead students to identify themselves with their reference group and make its main features come out.
™ Data have been gathered through the administration of a questionnaire
· The questionnaire with instructions "future-psychologist/future-lawyer" was given both to Psychology and Law students while attending class, in their classrooms; the one addressed to "citizens" was given to the students in an informal way, during breaks.
The interviewer was always present while the questionnaires were being filled in, also in order to help the students fill in and answer properly.
The average time for the administration was 10–15 minutes. Law students were particularly interested in the research, and they showed themselves, even making positive comments out loud, willing to fill in the questionnaire; on the average they also devoted more time than Psychology students to the filling in.
· The first part of the questionnaire consisted of a series of 13 items about the reasons why people respect the law; for each item students had to mark how much they did agree on a 5-point judgement scale (1= "Totally disagree" to 5= "Totally agree").
Items on the respect of law refer to some explicative models of the juridical behavior:
- model of the rational evaluation of costs and benefits of an action
- model of social influence and informal control
- model of ethical adhesion to the principles expressed by the law (inner consent, "orientation to values" according to Kohlberg’s model)
· The second part of the questionnaire consisted of a series of 17 items about the function of punishment; again in this case answers had to be given on the basis of an "agree/disagree" judgement scale, from 1 to 5 points.
Items on the function of punishment refer to the main guide-ideas leading the debate on the justification of punishment, and in particular:
- compensation
- general (or deterrent) and special precautionary measures
- re-education
- social defense and crime control
- catharsis
· Finally, a third part had been added to the questionnaire, for merely explorative purposes,
including:
- a question asking to estimate the probability of being victims, in their hometown, of
robbery or aggression (in order to value the sense of safety perceived);
- a question asking the students if they had ever personally been victims of robbery or
aggression (in order to estimate the degree of victimization);
- a question asking the students to indicate their own political preference by placing
themselves along a continuum from 1 to 5 (1 = left, 5 = right)
Results
™ In general, most of the people in our sample tend to conceive punishment in terms of compensation and as a way for crime control and social defense.
A lower approval was given to the re-educational aspect.
™ The multi-varied analysis of variance (MANOVA) for the variables "faculty" and "version of the questionnaire instructions" with drawing 2 (psychology versus law school) x 2 (future-psychologist/future-lawyer versus citizens) neither did focus any significant effect in one factor nor in the other; nevertheless it showed quite a significant interaction between them.
™ As far as the influence of the field of study is concerned, this is what the mono-varied analysis of variance show:
- a significant difference between Psychology students and Law students about the idea of punishment seen as "catharsis", i.e. as "a way out for aggressive tensions and for satisfying the darkest instincts of human nature in a controllable and controlled way" (F(1,88) = 11.23; p = .001). Psychology students show a higher approval to what is expressed by the item. Law students show a 1.98 average score, which is utterly the lowest average score among those which have been expressed by this group about other functions of the punishment;
- quite significant differences can be noticed as regards those statements which are related to the idea of punishment as a way for fighting crime by means of "examples" and "fear" (principle of deterrence): in this case Law students’ approval in considering punishment as a deterrent is, on the average, higher than Psychology students’.
- contrary to what we thought, there are no significant differences as far as re-education is concerned: therefore our hypothesis on the possibility that studies in Psychology could bear a special attention towards the re-educational function of punishment didn’t prove right.
Functions of punishment according to the field of study: significant results
| Items | Psych.Stud.average |
Law Stud. average |
Punishment is also a way out for aggressive tension and for satisfying the darkest instincts of human nature in a controllable and controlled way |
2.84 |
1.98 |
Punishment is an instrument for fighting crime |
2.85 |
3.31 |
People refrain from committing crimes for fear of punishment |
2.74 |
3.16 |
A person being punished serves as an example and a warning for the others |
2.72 |
3.00 |
Punishment protects the individual’s liberties and rights |
2.72 |
3.11 |
™ In general, the interviewees think the observance of rules to be based on the necessity of reciprocity, on public spirit and confidence in the institutions.
™ The multi-varied analysis of variance (MANOVA) for the variables "faculty" and "version of the questionnaire instructions", with drawing 2 x 2, neither did focus any significant effect in one or the other of the two factors, nor a significant interaction between them.
™ The mono-varied analysis of variance show a substantial convergence between Psychology and Law students’ opinions about the reasons why rules are respected.
™ The fact that the salience of the future role factor didn’t show any particularly significant effect could depend either on the use of an inadequate kind of analysis, or just on the fact that, when people answer a question, they don’t necessarily do it according to the positions expressing these opinions.
™ Through an analysis of correlation, which was made on single items:
- the more people think that law is respected because of fear of the punishment, the more the main functions of punishment must be both of a general and a special-preventive kind (it must operate on a social level, by means of the fear which is generated by punishment, and at the same time on the individual, in order to prevent him/her from relapsing);
- the more people think that behaving according to the law originates from an inner consent towards the values which are represented by the law, the less they give importance to the fear of punishment as the only way to stop crime and obtain the observance of the rules;
- when respect for the rules is a rational behavior which originates from an evaluation of the costs and benefits of actions, then punishment is, as the unpleasant consequence of an action, a disincentive and it represents the only way to obtain an adequate behavior.
Significant relations between opinions about the reasons why rules are respected and the function which is attributed to punishment; Pearson’s r factor is shown
| Respect for the law | Function of the punishment |
||||
| General precautionary measures | Special precautionary measures | General precautionary measures | Crime fighting | Legality control | |
| Fear of penalties | .50** | .37** | .32** | .32** | .28** |
| Ethical agreement | -.25* | ||||
| Costs & benefits evaluation | .37** | ||||
| Approval of the rules | -.33** | -.28** | |||
| Public spirit | -.24* | ||||
* p < .05; ** p < .01
&127; First of all, 42% of the people answered "probable on the average" to the question about the perceived sense of safety: therefore the Italian framework seems not to be perceived as very dangerous, but not completely safe either. 70% of the people declared they had never personally been victims of robbery or aggression, while 30% answered in the affirmative. Finally, 41.5% of the people placed themselves within the Left zone, 44.5% within the Center-Right zone, while 14% of the people did not answer the question (this question has scored the highest number of uncompleted answers).
&127; The results show that those who feel unsafe in the milieu they live in:
- are less inclined to admit the conditioning importance of the "public spirit" than those who
feel safe:
[ t-test(96) = 2.03, p < .05; Pearson’s r = .20, p < .05, bi-tailed test ]
- declare that "the purpose of penalties is to protect the individual’s liberties and rights":
[ t-test(94) = -3.08, p < .05; Pearson’s r = -.30, p < .01, bi-tailed test ]
· The Right front:
- agrees more than the Left front with the idea following the rational evaluation of costs and
compensation model:
[ t-test(85) = 1.92, p = 0.58; Pearson’s r = .20, p = .058, bi-tailed test ]
- agrees to a greater extent that "people refrain from committing crimes for fear of
punishment"
[ t-test(85) = 1.97, p = .05; Pearson’s r = .21, p = .051 ]
™ In conclusion: the results of this study, which basically agree with those produced by other empirical research, stressed as a main datum a general tendency to see punishment from its compensational side; therefore, they can be useful as a further hint for reflection within a debate which is, nowadays, quite burning and which tends to underline, on the contrary, the importance of the re-educational function of punishment.
References
Calderano B., La funzione della pena nella sua evoluzione, in Rassegna di studi penitenziari I, 1976
Friedman L.M., Il sistema giuridico nella prospettiva delle scienze sociali, Bologna, 1975
Foucault M., Sorvegliare e punire: nascita della prigione, Torino, 1976