ABSTRACT

Over the past several decades, societal responses to juvenile crime has evolved from harsh sentences (including death) to more lenient punishments in congruence with our greater understanding of adolescent development. However, some groups of young offenders, such as those convicted of sexual offenses, appear to have fallen victim to a more punitive zeitgeist, where the mitigating effect of age may be diminished. In a 3 × (2) design, participants were randomly assigned to one of three vignette conditions and completed several measures regarding both juveniles and adults adjudicated for sexual offenses, including attitudes, moral outrage, and recommendations for sentence length and registration. Results indicated that adjudicated juveniles are viewed more favourably than their adult counterparts, although both received relatively long sentences. Further, over 90% of participants endorsed some form of registration for juvenile offenders. Implications for offender reintegration and public policy are discussed below.

抽象的

在过去的几十年中，社会对青少年犯罪的反应已经从严厉的刑罚（包括死刑）演变成更宽大的刑罚，这与我们对青少年发展的更多理解相一致。但是，一些青年罪犯，例如那些因性犯罪而被定罪的青年罪犯，似乎已成为更惩罚性的时代精神的受害者，在那里减轻年龄的影响可能会减弱。在3×（2）设计中，参与者被随机分配到三种小插图条件中的一种，并完成了针对少年和成年人进行性犯罪判决的多项措施，包括态度，道德上的愤怒以及对句子长度和注册的建议。结果表明，虽然两个少年都被判了较长刑期，但他们比成年少年更受青睐。此外，超过90％的参与者认可了针对未成年人的某种形式的注册。下文讨论了对罪犯重返社会和公共政策的影响。