According to a recent YouGov survey two thirds of Brits say sentencing for convicted criminals is too soft and they should be punished more harshly by the courts.
The survey results were released yesterday, Wednesday March 30, and come after the news the mother of Baby P – who was tortured for months before succumbing to his abuse and dying in 2007 – will be released from prison.
Sentences should be tougher
The survey shows 65 percent, or two thirds, of the Britons who took part in the survey think the sentences the courts hand down to people who have been convicted of crimes are not harsh enough.
Just 12 percent of those surveyed think the courts get the balance right, while two percent actually say sentences are too harsh – whereas 21 percent said they were unsure.
When broken down into age groups the results showed less than half of those aged between 18 and 24 agreed with this as only 43 percent thought sentencing wasn’t harsh enough. Whereas Britons on the other end of the scale, over 65, are much more likely to be say sentencing is not harsh enough, according to 77 percent.
Brits were split the opposite way when it came to saying how unsure they were about sentencing – more than a third (37 percent) of 18 to 24-year-olds are unsure about the harshness of sentencing for convicted criminals, compared to just 12 percent of those aged over 65.
Split By Politics and Gender
An Overwhelming majority of Conservative voters (83 percent) said sentencing for convicted criminals is not harsh enough, and it is also the most popular choice for Labour voters, at 51 percent.
However, this difference is mostly explained by a significantly higher percentage of Labour voters answering ‘don’t know’ (30 percent) compared to just eight percent of Conservative voters.
Women were more likely to say criminals don’t receive tough enough sentencing, but the comparison was only slight against men with them voting 69 percent and 61 percent, respectively.