NCJ Number
239102
Journal
Justice Quarterly Volume: 29 Issue: 1 Dated: February 2012 Pages: 1-40
Date Published
February 2012
Length
40 pages
Annotation
Research on criminal sentencing, particularly on various types of disparity therein, has been an active field of inquiry for decades.
Abstract
Research on criminal sentencing, particularly on various types of disparity therein, has been an active field of inquiry for decades. This paper provides a conceptual survey of research on non-capital sentencing outcomes since 2000. I first look backward at the research agenda posed by reviews in the early 1980s, and in 2000. The author then discusses theoretical developments in the study of sentencing in the 1990s and 2000s. He then provides an overview of recent sentencing research focused on the following: (1) court organizational and social contexts, (2) individual courtroom workgroup members, (3) disparity conditional on intersecting defendant characteristics, (4) victim characteristics, and (5) earlier case processing events and decisions. The author then outlines several directions for moving sentencing research forward into the next decade. (Published Abstract)