A Survey on Public Acceptance of Restitution as an Alternative to Incarceration for Property Offenders in Hennepin County, Minnesota, U.S.A.

Abstract

As a response to the serious problem of prison and jail overcrowding in the criminal justice system, this research is a study on restitution as an alternative to incarceration for property offenders. To test three hypotheses, data were collected through mailing questionnaires to 2,177 randomly selected members of the public and 253 criminal justice officials with an overall response rate of 61.7% in Hennepin County, Minnesota, U.S.A. The results show the public’s strong support for restitution as an alternative penalty to incarceration for property offenders. Considerable ignorance or misunderstanding by criminal justice officials of the public’s support for restitution as an alternative sentencing has been found. Finally, crime victims seem to be less punitive than nonvictims.