Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The indeterminate sentencing structures that dominated criminal justice systems in the United States through the 1970s fragmented over the last three decades, replaced by patchworks of determinate and structured sentencing, mandatory sentencing, and truth-in-sentencing laws. Scholars have examined these recent state-level reforms in an effort to understand their philosophical underpinnings and their impact on the criminal justice system. Yet, there remains a lack of comparative work systematically analyzing the factors that determine why certain states have adopted particular sentencing laws while others have not. This paper assesses those factors that determine the timing of the enactment and content of two sentencing laws adopted across the states between 1975 and 2002: determinate sentencing and sentencing guidelines.

Explaining those factors that determine variation in the adoption and content of policies across jurisdictions continues to challenge policy innovation scholars in political science, sociology, and economics. However, while policy innovation studies have considered innovation across a wide range of policy areas, few have focused on the adoption of criminal justice policies. Using event history analysis, this paper tests the influence of several socioeconomic, political, and cultural factors on the propensity to enact legislation, explains why some states chose to enact determinate sentencing or sentencing guidelines legislation while others did not, and examines what determines the content of that legislation. These factors will include variables identified by scholars as influencing the adoption of criminal justice policies specifically and variables identified by policy innovation scholars as determining the adoption of policies generally. While scholars continue to debate the philosophical underpinnings and effects of recent sentencing reforms, determining those state-level factors driving the initial adoption and content of particular sentencing policies is critical to understanding the fragmentation in the American approach to punishment in an era of rapid policy change and harsh approaches to sentencing.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In order to reduce the chance of wrongful conviction, the Illinois Report of the Governor’s Commission on Capital Punishment recommends that “capital punishment not be available when a conviction is based solely upon the testimony of a single eyewitness, or of an in-custody informant, or of an uncorroborated accomplice, or when the defendant is mentally retarded” (2002:ii). We review trial transcripts for all Harris County (Houston), Texas capital cases from 1995 to 2000 to determine the number of defendants who received problematic death sentences according to the Commission’s guidelines. Although Texas has not adopted the Illinois guidelines, the fact that Harris County is the capital of capital punishment (if Harris County were a state it would rank third in executions after Texas and Virginia) suggests that it is important to discover the number of death sentences that meet the standard for an elevated risk of wrongful conviction. We also explore whether there is a correlation between social attributes (e.g. race, sex, class, age) and rate of death penalty sentencing. The policy implications of the findings are discussed.

Publication Type: Poster
Abstract: This study examines the prevalence and cause of sentencing disparity under the federal sentencing guidelines, based on survey data recently collected from over 300 federal judges, defense attorneys, and probation officers across the nation. Topics included in the survey were sentencing disparity, sentencing departures, judicial discretion, district make-up and location, and respondents’ personal attitudes on many sentencing and legal issues. This data was used to determine what, if any, extra-legal factors contribute to sentencing disparity, and if the Federal Sentencing Guidelines have succeeded in reducing the amount of disparity by limiting judge’s discretion.
Specifically, the data will be analyzed to determine how, if at all, any remaining judicial discretion affects disparity in sentencing, how judges’ personal attitudes and beliefs affect disparity, and how the crime rate of the judges’ district affects disparity. This information will then be use to determine if the key purpose of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which is to greatly reduce, if not eliminate disparity, has been achieved.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The Community Order and the Suspended Sentence Order (SSO) were introduced in England and Wales in April 2005. Both orders represent significant changes in the sentences available to the courts, as the former replaced various long-standing community penalties (including the probation order and the community service order), while the latter reintroduced the suspended sentence of imprisonment but with added requirements. This paper will examine how the new orders have been used since their introduction and present findings from the first study to examine the views of sentencers about the orders. Three levels of sentencer use the new orders - magistrates, District Judges and Crown Court Judges - and all were included in the study. Sentencers' views about how they use court sentences are rarely studied and this research provides information which helps to explain their use of the two orders and also to assess their success.

Publication Type: Poster
Abstract: In the late 1990s, Illinois joined many other states in implementing Truth-in-Sentencing (TIS), which in Illinois requires those convicted of murder to serve 100 percent of their sentence and those convicted of criminal sexual assault to serve 85 percent of their sentences. This paper will examine the extent to which the implementation of this law caused sentence lengths to change after statisitically controlling for offender, offense and sentencing jurisdiction characteristics.