Download or read book The Effects of Prior Stages of Criminal Justice Decision Making on Criminal Sentencing A Test of Three Models written by and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Previous research has analyzed the effects of legal and extralegal factors on criminal justice decision-making. Most of this research analyzes discrete stages, rather than multiple stages of the criminal justice process. Using data on felony convictions in a New Jersey State Court, this study compares the utility of a legal model of decision-making, an organizational model of decision-making and Black's (1976) theory of law in predicting several criminal justice outcomes. Providing some support for both the legal model and Black's theory of law, the results indicate the influence of both legal case characteristics and extralegal factors during initial stages of criminal justice processing. However, the influence of extralegal factors on later sentencing decisions through their effects on initial outcomes indicates the operation of organizational factors in criminal justice processing. While offenders are directly penalized by extralegal factors during initial criminal justice processing, they are penalized indirectly at sentencing stages by these same factors. Overall, the results of this analysis provide overwhelming support for an organizational model of criminal justice processing, in which later criminal justice outcomes are greatly a function of outcomes at previous stages. Previous research fails to systematically include prior outcomes in analyses of criminal sentencing. Criminal sentencing research that fails to consider the impact of initial criminal justice outcomes may falsely conclude that extralegal factors have no affect on decision-making.
Download or read book The Effects of Prior Stages of Criminal Justice Decision making on Criminal Sentencing written by Melissa Hunt Godwin and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Keywords: criminal sentencing, criminal justice.
Download or read book Exploring the Effects of Prior Record on Sentencing Decisions written by Jordan Tyler Zvonkovich and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prior research has consistently found that, after offense seriousness, an offenders criminal record is generally the strongest predictor of sentencing outcomes. Sentencing guideline jurisdictions explicitly consider both factors in the recommended sentence for an average offender. Scholars have identified two underlying rationales pertaining to the use of criminal history at sentencing. Retributive theorists argue that criminal records provide important information relevant to offender culpability. In their view, recidivists deserve more severe punishments for their continued criminality despite the prior sanctioning. In contrast, utilitarian sentencing systems are oriented toward crime prevention. Based on the general idea of deterrence, an offenders criminal record serves as a proxy for risk of future offending. Jurisdictions are often silent on their purported rationale for utilizing criminal history. Prior literature has also demonstrated that beyond its guideline recommendation, criminal history frequently exerts an independent effect on sentencing decisions. This study has two explicit goals: (1) to examine for what offenders this independent effect is strongest, and for which decision, incarceration or sentence length, and (2) to explore if the composition of prior record dictates differences in sentence length. Using statewide Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing data, this study analyzes offense severity-specific logistic and ordinary least squares regression models for the incarceration and sentence length decisions. Regarding the incarceration decision, findings suggest that the independent effect of prior record is statistically significant for low severity offenses. Additionally, findings suggest that this independent effect is conditioned by race. Black offenders are more likely than white offenders to receive incarceration sentences for defendants with a prior record score of zero. However, this racial difference is not significant at higher prior record score classifications. The results of the sentence length analysis suggest a more consistent independent effect of prior record. Prior record is a statistically significant predictor of the length of the sentence, beyond the sentencing guideline recommendation, for six of the twelve models. Similar to the incarceration analysis, findings suggest that this independent effect is conditioned by race. However, moderation by race is not consistent for all models. For very minor offenses (OGS 1 & 2), white offenders receive longer sentences at all prior record score classifications. Offenders convicted of somewhat more serious, but still relatively minor offenses (OGS 3-7), display a pattern similar to that of the incarceration analysis. Black offenders receive longer sentences relative to whites at lower prior record scores, but as prior record score increases the disparity is attenuated. For offenders convicted of more serious offenses (OGS 8 & 9), there appears to a statistically significant interaction, but the difference in sentence length is quite small. The second goal of this study is to analyze if the severity of the offenses represented in an offenders prior record score leads to longer sentences. There are many possible combinations of prior offenses that can lead to the same prior record score. For example, an offender with a prior record score of four may have one prior conviction (that counts for four points), or several minor offenses (which together total four points). Comparing like offenders, (i.e. those with the same prior record score), findings suggest that at lower OGS levels offenders with a greater overall quantity of past convictions receive longer sentences. However, at higher OGS levels offenders with serious convictions in their prior record receive longer sentences. The results are discussed in relation to an offense severity-specific attribution process.
Download or read book Model Rules of Professional Conduct written by American Bar Association. House of Delegates and published by American Bar Association. This book was released on 2007 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.
Download or read book Sentencing as a Human Process written by John Hogarth and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 1971-12-15 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sentencing is not a neutral or mechanical act; it is a human process, highly charged affectively and motivationally. Sentencing decisions take place in a social environment of laws, facts, ideas, and people. This study of sentencing behaviour is primarily concerned with the mental processes involved in decision-making. It is based on intensive interviews and on measures of the information-processing ability of seventy-one full-time judges in Ontario. The work covers such topics as: problems of sentencing (particularly existing disparities); social and economic background of judges and their varying penal philosophies; the nature and measurement of judicial attitudes toward crime; punishment and related issues; prediction of sentencing behaviour based on attitude scales (which the author has constructed) and also on 'fact patterns perceived by judges'; and the impact of social and legal constraints on the sentencing process. The study concludes that there exists a very high correlation between a judges definition of situation and the sentence which he imposes and that while sentences meted out for a particular law violation under similar circumstances may differ among judges, judges are 'highly consistent within themselves.' Using these conclusions the author constructs a model of judicial behaviour and shows how this model can be used to predict and to explain sentencing and breaks new ground in the use of the social and behavioural sciences as sources of data to explain the sentencing process.
Download or read book Performance Measures for the Criminal Justice System written by John J. DiIulio and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Discussion paper from the BJS-Princeton Project.
Download or read book Social Worlds of Sentencing written by Jeffery T. Ulmer and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1997-07-31 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Combines quantitative and qualitative data in a careful investigation of sentencing processes and context under Pennsylvania's sentencing guidelines.
Download or read book Juvenile Crime Juvenile Justice written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2001-06-05 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Even though youth crime rates have fallen since the mid-1990s, public fear and political rhetoric over the issue have heightened. The Columbine shootings and other sensational incidents add to the furor. Often overlooked are the underlying problems of child poverty, social disadvantage, and the pitfalls inherent to adolescent decisionmaking that contribute to youth crime. From a policy standpoint, adolescent offenders are caught in the crossfire between nurturance of youth and punishment of criminals, between rehabilitation and "get tough" pronouncements. In the midst of this emotional debate, the National Research Council's Panel on Juvenile Crime steps forward with an authoritative review of the best available data and analysis. Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice presents recommendations for addressing the many aspects of America's youth crime problem. This timely release discusses patterns and trends in crimes by children and adolescentsâ€"trends revealed by arrest data, victim reports, and other sources; youth crime within general crime; and race and sex disparities. The book explores desistanceâ€"the probability that delinquency or criminal activities decrease with ageâ€"and evaluates different approaches to predicting future crime rates. Why do young people turn to delinquency? Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice presents what we know and what we urgently need to find out about contributing factors, ranging from prenatal care, differences in temperament, and family influences to the role of peer relationships, the impact of the school policies toward delinquency, and the broader influences of the neighborhood and community. Equally important, this book examines a range of solutions: Prevention and intervention efforts directed to individuals, peer groups, and families, as well as day care-, school- and community-based initiatives. Intervention within the juvenile justice system. Role of the police. Processing and detention of youth offenders. Transferring youths to the adult judicial system. Residential placement of juveniles. The book includes background on the American juvenile court system, useful comparisons with the juvenile justice systems of other nations, and other important information for assessing this problem.
Download or read book Criminal Justice Sentencing in Contest written by Xia Wang and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To develop various measures of social context at county and state levels, I extract data from the U.S. Census of Bureau, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and the National Center for State Courts. Given the nature of the research questions and data, I use multilevel modeling techniques to test the hypotheses. Ultimately, the goal of this dissertation is to contribute to criminological and criminal justice research, as well as to policy discussions, by examining whether the influence of social context on criminal sentencing is more nuanced than what prior research has established and by advancing the development of theoretical accounts of sentencing.
Download or read book The Effects of Prison Sentences on Recidivism written by Paul Gendreau and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 39 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Social Threat and Social Control written by Allen E. Liska and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1992-01-01 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the conflict theory of social control, particularly the threat hypothesis. It asserts that deviance and crime control are responses to social threats such as criminal acts and riots, and to people perceived as threatening such as minorities and the unemployed. The authors use threat hypothesis to organize the diverse literatures on social control, use new data to resolve crucial issues, and integrate current perspectives to develop the threat proposition. They analyze patterns of deviance and crime control ranging from fatal or lethal controls such as state executions or lynching, to physical restraint such as imprisonment, to beneficient controls such as mental health hospitalization and even welfare.
Download or read book United States Attorneys Manual written by United States. Department of Justice and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Guidelines Manual written by United States Sentencing Commission and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Economic Perspectives on Incarceration and the Criminal Justice System written by Executive Office Executive Office of the President and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-09-01 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Calls for criminal justice reform have been mounting in recent years, in large part due to the extraordinarily high levels of incarceration in the United States. Today, the incarcerated population is 4.5 times larger than in 1980, with approximately 2.2 million people in the United States behind bars, including individuals in Federal and State prisons as well as local jails. The push for reform comes from many angles, from the high financial cost of maintaining current levels of incarceration to the humanitarian consequences of detaining more individuals than any other country. Economic analysis is a useful lens for understanding the costs, benefits, and consequences of incarceration and other criminal justice policies. In this report, we first examine historical growth in criminal justice enforcement and incarceration along with its causes. We then develop a general framework for evaluating criminal justice policy, weighing its crime-reducing benefits against its direct government costs and indirect costs for individuals, families, and communities. Finally, we describe the Administration's holistic approach to criminal justice reform through policies that impact the community, the cell block, and the courtroom.
Download or read book National Assessment of Structured Sentencing written by and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1996-12 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents the findings of the first national assessment of sentencing reforms. This report offers lessons learned in the diverse efforts to structure sentencing over the past two decades. These lessons are offered in the context of a historical perspective of sentencing practices used in the U. S., with a discussions of the issues that led to the structured sentencing movement. They are based on a national survey of existing sentencing practices in the 50 States & the District of Columbia. Sources for further information. Bibliography. Charts & tables.
Download or read book Desistance from Crime written by Michael Rocque and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-04-25 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book represents a brief treatise on the theory and research behind the concept of desistance from crime. This ever-growing field has become increasingly relevant as questions of serious issues regarding sentencing, probation and the penal system continue to go unanswered. Rocque covers the history of research on desistance from crime and provides a discussion of research and theories on the topic before looking towards the future of the application of desistance to policy. The focus of the volume is to provide an overview of the practical and theoretical developments to better understand desistance. In addition, a multidisciplinary, integrative theoretical perspective is presented, ensuring that it will be of particular interest for students and scholars of criminology and the criminal justice system.
Download or read book Sociology of Crime Law and Deviance written by Jeffrey T. Ulmer and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2000-12-20 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sociology of Crime, Law and Deviance" is an annual series of volumes that publishes scholarly work in criminology and criminal justice studies, sociology of law, and the sociology of deviance and social control. These are very broad topics, and the series reflects this breadth. The series includes theoretical contributions, critical reviews of literature, empirical research, and methodological innovations. The series especially showcases "big picture" pieces that review and critically reconceptualize what is known and what remains to be understood about broad directions of research and theorizing about crime, justice, law, deviance, and social control. In addition, the series showcases a diversity of methodological approaches. "Volume 2" demonstrates such methodological diversity by presenting quantitative studies, ethnographies and discourse analyses. Through an application of these methodologies, the authors examine sanctions, crime and fear and legal and social control organizations and processes. The volume concludes with four chapters contributing to theory development.
