Social Construction of Drunken Driving - Modeling the Organizational Processing of DWI (Driving While Intoxicated) Defendants

• NCJ Number: 104358
• Journal: Social Science Quarterly Volume: 67 Issue: 4 Dated: (December 1986) Pages: 785-802
• Author(s): D Jacobs; M Fuller
• Date Published: 1986
• Length: 18 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

In this study, the impact of legal and extralegal factors on the court processing of defendants accused of driving while intoxicated in a suburban county in Maryland is gauged.

Abstract

Extralegal considerations such as the gender, income, and race of defendants are found to matter most when the determination of guilt is at issue, but legal considerations such as the number of prior convictions and the severity of the offense have more substantial effects when sentence is decided. Consistent with the predictions of Stoll (1968), extralegal factors are found to predict court outcomes best when judges have the most influence over a DWI outcome, but extralegal factors tend to be disregarded when probation officers are more influential. (Author abstract)