A new approach for ranking 'serious' offences. The use of paired-comparisons methodology

The non-consequentialist approach to punishment sentences on the basis of o ffence-seriousness. However, there has been little theoretical or empirical consideration of the notion of offence-seriousness. Identification of 'ser ious' offences tends to be commonsensical at best. Further, there is curren tly no systematic way of measuring changes of seriousness over time. This study is a demonstration project displaying a way to investigate how t he judiciary and the magistracy rank offence-seriousness in assessing actua l cases. The use of paired-comparisons methodology provides a procedure whi ch overcomes some problems of previous approaches. The method enables an as sessment of the performance of judges and magistrates in terms of how they view the seriousness of offences without the artificiality of being involve d in hypothesized field experiments.