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Public sentiments on justice in Norway (completed)

This project aims to develop new knowledge about different types of public sentiments on justice in Norway, based on a representative population questionnaire and focus group interviews.

Black and white photo of the walls of Oslo Prison

Oslo Prison. Photo: Morten Fredriksen

About the project

Politicians often refer to public sentiments as an argument for introducing harsher punishments. But what does the public actually think about how different forms of crime should be punished?

This project will produce new knowledge about different types of public sentiments on justice among the Norwegian population. We will address the general public sentiments on justice, which covers the public's immediate attitudes and feelings toward law and order, justice and punishment; the informed public sentiments on justice, which includes informed choices of punishment in specific and contextualised criminal cases; and the concrete public sentiments on justice, which is based on more reflective reasoning in such cases.

Research questions

The project will shed light on public sentiments on justice in Norway with regard to whether, how, and why Norwegians will punish criminal, or potentially criminal, acts.

The project will map out public sentiments regarding four distinct types of crime:

sex crimes
drug crimes
hate speech
violence and abuse

Data collection

We will utilise phone interviews and a vignette-based questionnaire to a representative sample of the Norwegian population, as well as a qualitative follow-up among teenagers and young adults in focus group interviews based on the same vignettes.

In addition to this, we will collect data about the actual levels of punishment in Norway with the help of a panel of judges. Lastly, we plan to gather data about teenagers, especially through the Ungdata questionnaires.