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Book Effects of Judges  Sentencing Decisions on Criminal Careers

Download or read book Effects of Judges Sentencing Decisions on Criminal Careers written by Don M. Gottfredson and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book How Do Judges Decide

    Book Details:
  • Author : Cassia Spohn
  • Publisher : SAGE
  • Release : 2002-01-28
  • ISBN : 9780761987604
  • Pages : 356 pages

Download or read book How Do Judges Decide written by Cassia Spohn and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2002-01-28 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The appropriate amount of punishment for a given crime is an issue that has been debated by scholars, philosophers and legal professionals since the beginning of civilizations. This book seeks to address this issue in all of its complexity by providing a comprehensive overview of the sentencing process in the United States. The book begins by discussing the overall concept of punishment and then proceeds to dissect individual aspects of punishment. Topics include: the sentencing process; responsibility of the judge; disparity and discrimination in sentencing; and sentencing reform. This book is an ideal text for introductory courses on the judicial system, criminal law, law and society. It can be an essential resource to help students understand patterns in the wide discretion and latitude given to judges when determining punishments within the framework of the United States judicial system.

Book The Social Contexts of Criminal Sentencing

Download or read book The Social Contexts of Criminal Sentencing written by Martha A. Myers and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historically, the announcement and invocation of criminal penalties were public spectacles. Today, fear of crime and disaffection with the criminal justice system guarantee that this public fascination with punishment continues. In the past decade, virtually every legislature in the country has undertaken sentencing reform, in the hope that public concern with crime would be allayed and dispari ties in criminal sentences would be reduced if not eliminated. Scholars have intensified their longstanding preoccupation with discrimination and the sources of disparate treatment during sentencing - issues that continue to fuel contem porary reform efforts. As documented in Chapter 1, empirical research on sen tencing has concentrated much of its attention on the offender. Only recently have attempts been made to imbed sentencing in its broader organizational and social contexts. Our study extends these attempts by quantitatively analyzing the relationship between the offender and the social contexts in which he or she is sentenced. We use data on felony sentencing in Georgia between 1976 and 1985 to ask three questions. The first addresses an issue of perennial concern: during sentencing, how important are offender attributes, both those of explicit legal relevance and traits whose legal relevance is questionable or nonexistent? The second question directs attention to the social contexts of sentencing and asks whether they directly affect sentencing outcomes.

Book Do Judges  Experiences and Indelible Traits Influence Sentencing Decisions

Download or read book Do Judges Experiences and Indelible Traits Influence Sentencing Decisions written by William Hauser (III) and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ABSTRACT: Judicial decision-making has been a long-standing subject of criminological inquiry. It has been the explicit focus of theory (e.g. Steffensmeier, Ulmer, & Kramer, 1998; Albonetti, 1991; Farrell & Holmes, 1991) and is implicit in discussions of unwarranted sentencing disparity, determinate sentencing, and extra-legal offender attributes such as race. Central to each of these topics is the judge's sentencing decision and the differences in sentences that flow from the use of discretion. However, few studies have actually directly examined variation in judges' sentencing behavior and how this variation corresponds to judge and offender attributes. This dissertation fills that void by using data from Florida Circuit Courts to examine how judges' indelible attributes and experiences influence their use of imprisonment. Results demonstrate that judges are far from homogenous in their sentencing behavior and, in spite of sentencing guidelines, extra-legal offender attributes continue to matter but in nuanced ways. Findings include statistically significant effects for the judges' political party affiliation, age, time on bench, sex, race, and Hispanic ethnicity; several of these effects are conditioned by offender attributes. These effects are modest in magnitude but when considered cumulatively, they result in consequential differences in the probability that an offender is imprisoned. Judges also show considerable variation in their propensity to imprison even after controlling for differences in their traits. While judge attributes like race and sex matter, they do not adequately capture the bulk of inter-judge variation in the use of imprisonment. In short, criminal sentencing remains a highly individualized activity.

Book Handbook on Punishment Decisions

Download or read book Handbook on Punishment Decisions written by Jeffery T. Ulmer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-10-16 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Handbook on Punishment Decisions: Locations of Disparity provides a comprehensive assessment of the current knowledge on sites of disparity in punishment decision-making. This collection of essays and reports of original research defines disparity broadly to include the intersection of race/ethnicity, gender, age, citizenship/immigration status, and socioeconomic status, and it examines dimensions such as how pretrial or guilty plea processes shape exposure to punishment, how different types of sentencing decisions and/or policy structures (sentencing guidelines, mandatory minimums, risk assessment tools) might shape and condition disparity, and how post-sentencing decisions involving probation and parole contribute to inequalities. The sixteen contributions pull together what we know and what we don’t about punishment decision-making and plow new ground for further advances in the field. The ASC Division on Corrections & Sentencing Handbook Series publishes volumes on topics ranging from violence risk assessment to specialty courts for drug users, veterans, or people with mental illness. Each thematic volume focuses on a single topical issue that intersects with corrections and sentencing research.

Book Judicial Decision making and Criminal Sentencing

Download or read book Judicial Decision making and Criminal Sentencing written by Sean Daly (Political scientist) and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 62 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American trial judges exercise an enormous power when they sentence criminal offenders to a specific length of incarceration. Does the partisan affiliation of the trial judge affect the final determination in an offender's length of incarceration? Using a psychological framework, I examine the effects that partisanship, and ideology have on a judge's perception of the root causes of crime and the primary purpose that sentencing should serve in our criminal justice system. Using a unique proxy measure for judicial partisanship I analyze violent felony cases in Washington State from 2000 to 2006. I find that a Republican judge hands down a sentence 4.4% longer than a Democratic judge, controlling for other case factors. Additional analysis shows that this finding is most prominent in rape cases, in which a Republican judge can be expected to hand down a sentence 34% longer than his Democratic counterpart. I conclude with several possible explanations on why rape cases would trigger an exceptionally longer sentence from a Republican judge.

Book Explaining Criminal Careers

    Book Details:
  • Author : John F. MacLeod
  • Publisher : Oxford University Press
  • Release : 2012-08-23
  • ISBN : 0191645249
  • Pages : 273 pages

Download or read book Explaining Criminal Careers written by John F. MacLeod and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-08-23 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Explaining Criminal Careers presents a simple but influential theory of crime, conviction and reconviction. The assumptions of the theory are derived directly from a detailed analysis of cohort samples extracted from the Home Office Offenders Index - a unique database which contains records of all criminal (standard list) convictions in England and Wales since 1963. In particular, the theory explains the well-known Age/Crime curve. Based on the idea that there are only three types of offenders, who commit crimes at either high or low (constant) rates and have either a high or low (constant) risk of reoffending, this simple theory makes exact quantitative predictions about criminal careers and age-crime curves. Purely from the birth-rate over the second part of the 20th century, the theory accurately predicts (to within 2%) the prison population contingent on a given sentencing policy. The theory also suggests that increasing the probability of conviction after each offence is the most effective way of reducing crime, although there is a role for treatment programmes for some offenders. The authors indicate that crime is influenced by the operation of the Criminal Justice System and that offenders do not 'grow out' of crime as commonly supposed; they are persuaded to stop or decide to stop after (repeated) convictions, with a certain fraction of offenders desisting after each conviction. Simply imprisoning offenders will not reduce crime either by individual deterrence or by incapacitation. With comprehensive explanations of the formulae used and complete mathematical appendices allowing for individual interpretations and further development of the theory, Explaining Criminal Careers represents an innovative and meticulous investigation into criminal activity and the influences behind it. With clear policy implications and a wealth of original and significant discussions, this book marks a ground-breaking chapter in the criminological debate surrounding criminal careers.

Book Research on Sentencing

    Book Details:
  • Author : National Research Council
  • Publisher : National Academies Press
  • Release : 1983-02-01
  • ISBN : 0309033837
  • Pages : 506 pages

Download or read book Research on Sentencing written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1983-02-01 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Guidelines Manual

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:

Book Vacancy in Justice

    Book Details:
  • Author : Jason Best
  • Publisher :
  • Release : 2015
  • ISBN :
  • Pages : 0 pages

Download or read book Vacancy in Justice written by Jason Best and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Policymakers and scholars repeatedly warn that frequent and persistent judicial vacancies pose one of the greatest threats to the federal judiciary by overburdening judges. Scholars, in turn, are divided as to whether pressure on judges results in more lenient punishment. Despite such concerns, the effect of vacancies is rarely tested directly and related studies generally fail to account for issues of endogeneity related to vacancies and caseloads. We address both concerns by using an innovative instrumental variables strategy and unique data, consisting of over 400,000 cases to test vacancies' effects on federal district court judges' sentencing decisions. We find that overburdened judges take shortcuts, such as using focal points and cues, resulting in harsher sentences. The analysis has significant implications for those concerned with civil liberties and taxpayers who must shoulder the financial costs of incarceration.

Book The Effects of Prior Stages of Criminal Justice Decision Making on Criminal Sentencing  A Test of Three Models

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.

Book Handbook on the Consequences of Sentencing and Punishment Decisions

Download or read book Handbook on the Consequences of Sentencing and Punishment Decisions written by Beth M. Huebner and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-08-06 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Handbook on the Consequences of Sentencing and Punishment Decisions, the third volume in the Routledge ASC Division on Corrections & Sentencing Series, includes contemporary essays on the consequences of punishment during an era of mass incarceration. The Handbook Series offers state-of-the-art volumes on seminal and topical issues that span the fields of sentencing and corrections. In that spirit, the editors gathered contributions that summarize what is known in each topical area and also identify emerging theoretical, empirical, and policy work. The book is grounded in the current knowledge about the specific topics, but also includes new, synthesizing material that reflects the knowledge of the leading minds in the field. Following an editors’ introduction, the volume is divided into four sections. First, two contributions situate and contextualize the volume by providing insight into the growth of mass punishment over the past three decades and an overview of the broad consequences of punishment decisions. The overviews are then followed by a section exploring the broader societal impacts of punishment on housing, employment, family relationships, and health and well-being. The third section centers on special populations and examines the unique effects of punishment for juveniles, immigrants, and individuals convicted of sexual or drug-related offenses. The fourth section focuses on institutional implications with contributions on jails, community corrections, and institutional corrections.

Book Heterogeneous Impacts of Sentencing Decisions

Download or read book Heterogeneous Impacts of Sentencing Decisions written by Andrew Jordan and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We examine 70,581 felony court cases filed in Chicago, IL during the period 1990-2007. We exploit case randomization to assess the impact of judge assignment and sentencing decisions on the arrival rates of new charges. Relative to prior research, we document an important source of heterogeneity in the impact of incarceration on recidivism. Incarceration creates lasting reductions in recidivism among first offenders but not repeat offenders. We present suggestive evidence that these reductions among first offenders primarily reflect outcomes for offenders who live in lower-crime areas of the city and are not involved in the drug trade. During our sample period, Illinois parole officers were able to issue arrest warrants for former inmates under their supervision. These powers place former inmates at significant risk of returning to prison as punishment for violations of technical conditions of their supervision. However, we find no evidence that these police powers increased the arrival rate of new charges against formerly incarcerated offenders. Incarceration does not reduce the arrival of new criminal charges among repeat offenders, and this outcome is not the result of parole officers over-policing repeat offenders.