ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

Abuse of persons with disabilities is emerging as a serious public matter. The unwillingness to punish is frequently used as a mitigating factor in the sentencing of abuse of persons with disabilities. However, there has been no empirical research to confirm how this sentencing factor actually affects punitive judgment. The aim of this study is to examine the effect of the victim’s intellectual disability and unwillingness to punish on punitive judgments in an abuse crime case. A total of 314 participants between 20s to 50s, who are eligible for jury duty, were presented with manipulated mock trial scenarios regarding the victim’s intellectual disability and unwillingness to punish, and then asked to provide judgments on the abuse crime case. Although there was no interaction effect between the victim’s intellectual disability and unwillingness to punish on the punitive judgments, participants provided significantly higher sentences when the victim had intellectual disability. Additionally, the sequential mediation effect of perceived understanding and perceived sincerity of unwillingness to punish between the victim’s intellectual disability and punitive judgment was examined. Specifically, when the victim had an intellectual disability, the understanding of the victim's unwillingness to punish was perceived to be lower, the lower the perceived understanding, the lower the perceived sincerity of the unwillingness to punish, the lower the perceived sincerity of unwillingness to punish, the more likely the defendant was judged guilty and provided a higher sentence. The implications and limitations of this study were discussed.

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