Abstract:
This study was to investigate the adoption of criminological theories in judicial
discretion under the perspectives of the judges in Bangkok; to compare attitudes of the judges
in the adoption of criminological theories and to be as guidelines so as to plan working,
improving and encouraging judges to adopt the criminological theories to be conscious of
penalty objectives which were focused on behavioral etiology so as punishment was worth the
offenses and criminals themselves. Samples were 127 judges in the nisi prius courts in
Bangkok. Data collections were through questionnaire and statistics for analysis were
frequency, percentage, standard deviation and one-way ANOVA. Results were:
1. Personal Background it was found that majority of the judges were 30-45 years of
age with domicile in upcountry, educated from the Barrister-at-Law (Thai Bar), married with
judge experiences of 5-10 years. They have ever been studied criminological subjects but
never trained in criminology including never attended in seminars of criminology.
2. The judges agreed with adoption of lower IQ than the common people of the
criminals in judicial discretion on crimes against person, sex, property, and narcotics. They
also agreed with adoption of job scarcity and daily wage dependency of the criminals in
judicial discretion on crime against property.
3. Judges with different gender and domicile had different perspectives of the
adoption of criminological theories in judicial discretion on crimes against person, and sex by
statistical significance at 0.05 levels.
4. Judges with different gender and domicile had different perspectives of the
adoption of criminological theories in judicial discretion on crimes against property by
statistical significance at 0.05 levels.
5. Judges with different domicile, term of office, criminological education,
criminological training, and attending criminological seminars had different perspectives of
the adoption of criminological theories in judicial discretion on crimes against narcotics by
statistical significance at 0.05 levels.
Recommendation from the study
Judges should have been added with criminological knowledge so as to raise
perspectives in discretion besides rules of laws only. Rationally, the criminal justice has, at
present, focused more on rehabilitations rather than retributions.