Development of Justification for Punishment Scale (JPS) / Shorter version of Justification for Punishment Scale (S-JPS)

Abstract

Previous studies investigating the public perception of justification for punishment use differing items, rendering their findings incomparable. This study aimed to develop a validated Justification for Punishment Scale (JPS) and a Shorter version of Justification for Punishment Scale (S-JPS). In the preliminary study, passages about justification for punishment were extracted from books on criminal law and then categorized via a thematic analysis (KJ method). In Study 1, an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using items from the extracted categories revealed a five-factor model covering retribution, revenge, general prevention, rehabilitation, and incapacitation. Study 2 confirmed the robustness of the factor structure in Study 1 using another EFA with a different sample, and reliability coefficients were adequately high. JPS validity was tested through (partial) correlations between justifications for an offender sentencing and the corresponding factors. Additionally, certain items selected for the S-JPS and their psychometric properties were compared with the JPS. The result showed the JPS and S-JPS have good reliability and validity and can be used for future research.