Organised Crime & Crime Prevention - what works? - Scandinavian ...

NSfK’s 40. forskerseminar, Espoo, Finland 1998
‘It is difficult to find the time when on the Bench to discuss fully the whole subject.’ (Davies
1996 pp. 32-37)
The comments regarding the usefulness of focus groups expressed above would suggest that
they provide the panellists with a positive experience in that it offered them the opportunity to
express their own views and hear the views of others. For the researcher the focus groups
provided the chance to clarify the formal and the informal rules used by decision makers, as
well as the opportunity to probe the tacit or underlying assumptions that decision makers hold
about their role. The moderator can seek to determine the significance of meaning attached to
different types of information received by decision makers. By providing stimuli material to
a panel of peers with similar knowledge and status, it is possible to clarify meanings and
ambiguities and to check whether one panellist’s comments correspond to what others say in
the group. The interactionist nature of the discussion helps to promote greater insight as the
moderator and other members of the panel can probe, challenge, and comment on the
statements made during the discussions.
Burglary scenarios
In our comparative sentencing project we are asking professional and lay judges to give their
views as to the likely sentence that a burglar described in five different scenarios would be
given. Two of the five burglary scenarios are presented below. These two represent our most
extreme cases in terms of seriousness. We would expect judges in all jurisdictions, even in
Lithuania, to be able to consider a non-custodial sentence in Case 1. In Case 2, a more
serious scenario with the offender having previous convictions, a Finnish judge would be
likely to consider imprisonment. The three other scenarios provide less extreme examples
where judges would have to exercise discretion to make decisions about borderline cases
where either prison or community sanctions might be a possibility. We remind the judge that
this is not a sentencing exercise where we would expect them to have a great deal more
information, but is an exercise to see firstly in general terms what type of sentence they think
is most likely, and secondly, to ask what further information would they need or request
before they would make a decision in a real case.
In the scenarios we present brief facts about the offence, the offender and the victim
and in all the scenarios the defendants are male aged 24 and plead guilty. The scenarios
exclude those where violence is used or weapons are involved.
Case 1
Offence
Is a burglary of a flat during hours of daylight, when residents were at work. Access was
gained through an open window, with no damage to property. The offence was opportunistic
and the items stolen were foodstuffs for the defendant’s own consumption. The offence was
discovered as a result of information from an informer, and the defendant admitted guilt to
police when first interviewed and pleaded guilty in court at the first opportunity.
Offender
Defendant is of previous good character and has been unemployed for over one year. He has
two children and a sick wife and he suffers from epilepsy.
Victim
Working couple who were in their mid-20s who did not realize initially that they had been
victims of a burglary.
Case 2
155