Victims can seek financial compensation through restitution for the harms caused by crimes they experience. However, most victims do not receive it, often due to people’s inability to pay court-ordered restitution. This study investigates how this information about financial restitution informs public opinion about non-financial forms of restitution such as community service or victim-offender mediation. We conducted a large-scale, nationally representative survey (n = 4200) that contained experimentally manipulated factors of age of the person who is assessed restitution (16, 23, 40 years old) and their prior relationship/association to the victim (e.g. known/unknown) to see how those factors would shape public opinion on this issue. Our quantitative and qualitative findings did not find treatment effects, but we consistently observed a significant association with political party identity. We attribute those findings to the strong sentiment around the need for the person who commits a crime to take financial accountability which persists despite the messaging that the person cannot afford to pay the restitution and victims ultimately will never receive the full amount.
Paik et al. (Fri,) studied this question.
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