Punishment from the perspective of the public and the media

Annotation:
In a democratic society, the legitimacy of the criminal justice system is crucial to its proper functioning and effectiveness. This legitimacy is based on the public's perception of whether punishments are fair and appropriate. This research project will examine how the public perceives punishment, how people obtain and evaluate information related to it, and what they consider important. It will also examine how people in the Czech Republic perceive different approaches to punishment and what they think a fair punishment should entail. It will explore what people deem desirable in a punishment and what its goal should be, as well as how they perceive the various institutions of the criminal justice system. The research project will also analyse how the above issues are represented in public and in the media, including an analysis of how individual actors in criminal policy communicate in the media. The knowledge obtained from the project may be used by press departments of justice institutions and administrators of the organisations' social networks, among others. The results will complement the findings of other IKSP projects.

Responsible researcher: PhDr. Lucie Háková, Ph.D.
Research team:
PhDr. Jan Tomášek, Ph.D.
Mgr. et Mgr. Tereza Raszková
Mgr. Petra Zhřívalová, Ph.D.
Mgr. Jiří Vlach
Duration: 2026-2028