Patterns of punitiveness. Popular attitudes toward gender-based violence in France and Germany

This article investigates public attitudes regarding gender-based violence in France and Germany. The analysis of public preferences relies on the responses of members of the public in France and Germany (n = 100) who were asked to choose a sanction for three fictitious criminal cases related to gender-based violence and to justify their choice. In this article, I first question whether respondents share common perceptions on gender violence and show that French respondents are significantly more punitive than German respondents. The subsequent qualitative analysis of the respondents’ reasoning explains these variations by examining the role of criminal justice policies and of the mediatisation of the issues about public perceptions of gender-based violence. The sociodemographic characteristics of the respondents also contribute to explaining the punitive demands expressed in each country in a more nuanced way.