Assessing Motivations for Punishment: The Sentencing Goals Inventory

• Author: Jake W. Plantz,Tess M. S. Neal,Carl B. Clements,Abigayl M. Perelman,Sarah L. Miller
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00938548221131954
• Published date: 01 January 2023
• Date: 01 January 2023
• Subject Matter: Original Articles

CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR, 2023, Vol. 50, No. 1, January 2023, 139 –162.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/00938548221131954

Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions

© 2022 International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology

139

ASSESSING MOTIVATIONS FOR PUNISHMENT

The Sentencing Goals Inventory

JAKE W. PLANTZ

McGill University

TESS M. S. NEAL

Arizona State University

CARL B. CLEMENTS

The University of Alabama

ABIGAYL M. PERELMAN

The University of Alabama

Naval Consolidated Brig Miramar

SARAH L. MILLER

The University of Alabama

Maine State Forensic Service

The purpose of these studies was to develop a novel measurement, the Sentencing Goals Inventory (SGI), for understanding

the underlying people’s motivations for punishing justice-involved individuals. Prior scales have focused on punishment

motives such as utilitarianism (incapacitation or deterrence) and retribution (“just deserts”) but have not assessed a rehabili-

tation motive (punishment with the goal of addressing the cause of criminality) in tandem. Building on the previous unpub-

lished work by Perelman and colleagues (2010), we conducted four new studies on the SGI. A slightly modified version of

the scale emerged as a well-fitting model for sentencing goals. It displayed good reliability across samples, internal structure

validity, and discriminant and convergent validity with other measures. This work provides a strong basis of evidence for the

SGI as a measure of current social attitudes toward criminal justice sanctions and punishment that can be used in future

research and to inform public policy.

Keywords: measurement; psychology; policy; punishment; sentencing

AUTHORS’ NOTE: Jake Plantz was affiliated with Arizona State University during the time this project was con-

ducted, but was at McGill University for much of the writing and editing of the paper. For a portion of this project,

Tess M.S. Neal was supported by Fulbright Scholarship from the Australian-American Fulbright Commission. This

manuscript is not an official Department of State publication, and the views and information presented here are the

authors’ and do not represent the Fulbright Commission or the host country’s government or institutions.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jake W. Plantz, Department of Psychology, 2001

McGill University Avenue suite 1200, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 1G, Canada; e-mail: jacob.plantz@mail.mcgill.ca.

Our materials and datasets can be found on the Open Science Framework (OSF): https://osf.io/apz8u/. We have no

conflicts of interest to disclose. Portions of this project were funded by a grant from Arizona State University.

1131954CJBXXX10.1177/00938548221131954Criminal Justice and BehaviorPlantz et al. / THE SENTENCING GOALS INVENTORY

research-article2022

140 CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR

Understanding and measuring sentencing goal beliefs, the latent motivation behind why

people want to punish justice-involved individuals, can be a vital source of informa-

tion in crafting policy in line with evolving societal views on the justice system. The atti-

tudes and ideology of society have long had an impact on the tenets and functioning of the

legal system (Wolfgang, 1988); however, measuring sentencing goals is a more recent

endeavor. As such, few measures exist to accomplish this aim. Those that do (e.g., Carroll

et al., 1987; Yamamoto & Maeder, 2019) are limited in the goals they measure. Although

these measures are useful, they leave a gap in our ability to measure sentencing goals in a

comprehensive fashion that could be relevant to policy contexts.

Thus, the aim of the present work is to validate a measure, the Sentencing Goals Inventory

(SGI) that captures the full range of sentencing goals. The information provided by the

measure will be beneficial in informing criminal justice policy, correctional interventions,

and sentencing severity such that it reflects the general orientation of a community. Better

understanding sentencing goals can inform policy change that reflects society’s values if

they shift over time and could be useful in other contexts as well where understanding an

individual person’s preferences is important (e.g., jury selection, political campaigning).

WHY SOCIETIES PUNISH JUSTICE-INVOLVED INDIVIDUALS?

Punishment holds an important role in society. The usage and purpose of punishment, or

goals of sentencing, have varied across time and place (Miethe & Lu, 2005). Philosophers

have identified five major sentencing goals that characterize punishment ideologies present

in western, Judeo-Christian, liberal societies like the United States: rehabilitation, retribu-

tion, general deterrence, individual deterrence, and incapacitation (Ezorsky, 2015). These

do not encompass all punishment philosophies in the world but largely describe those pres-

ent in the history of the United States and other western, liberal societies.

In the early to mid-1900s, the United States saw a largely rehabilitative approach to

punishment characterized by the idea that “crime is a public health concern susceptible to

diagnosis and cure” (Alschuler, 2003, p. 6). This idea has been thoroughly elaborated by

Cullen (2013), who discussed the so-called “rehabilitative ideal,” the concept that seek-

ing to rehabilitate justice-involved individuals, or trying to fix the reason for offending,

serves the broad social purpose of signaling a belief in redemption. Thus, rehabilitation,

as a sentencing goal means that we punish with the goal of addressing the reasons for

criminal offending to benefit the individual as well as society. The U.S. justice system

transitioned away from this approach in the 1970s toward a focus on retributive and utili-

tarian goals for punishment (Cullen, 2013). This was after Martinson (1974) character-

ized rehabilitative efforts not showing a significant impact on recidivism rates, which

would be later interpreted, famously, as the notion that “nothing works” in terms of

changing criminal behavior.

The retributive motive is characterized by a desire for justice-involved people to get what

they deserve, a concept embedded in the Judeo-Christian tradition characterized by the old

adage “an eye for an eye” (Ezorsky, 2015; Miethe & Lu, 2005). The approach, in its current

form, punishes a justice-involved person so that they receive their “just deserts,” or what

they are perceived to deserve (Miethe & Lu, 2005). An example of retribution in the United

States is mandatory sentencing policies that place minimum sentencing requirements for