The Continuum of Criminal Offenses Instrument

The Continuum of Criminal Offenses was developed in order to examine how a segment of the “law-abiding” community, who are believed to be representative of middle-class values and attitudes towards the law, would rate the seriousness of selected criminal offenses and how they would then handle offenders given the current alternatives available within the criminal justice system. Those crimes which were rated as being more serious were dealt with more sternly in terms of sentencing alternatives. Mixed findings, however, were produced when the same subjects were asked to rate selected criminal offense descriptions according to the seriousness of the criminal elements found within the offenses.