Social Worlds of Sentencing: Court Communities Under Sentencing Guidelines

• NCJ Number: 168701
• Author(s): J T Ulmer
• Date Published: 1997
• Length: 244 pages
• Sale Source: State University of New York Press
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: SUNT Series in New Directions in Crime and Justice Series

Annotation

This book investigates sentencing disparity, case processing and organizational relations under Pennsylvania's sentencing guidelines.

Abstract

Many States and the Federal system have embraced sentencing guidelines as a mechanism of sentencing reform. This book draws from interactionist theories of organizations and James Eisenstein's depiction of courts as communities to frame an investigation of sentencing disparity, case processing and organizational relations under Pennsylvania's sentencing guidelines. The book includes a statistical analysis of statewide sentencing outcomes and comparative statistical and ethnographic analysis of three different-sized county courts. The statistical data show that the major influences on sentencing are legally prescribed ones, but that factors such as conviction by trial, race and gender, and court size are also significant. Ethnographic data illuminate processes behind the statistics by connecting court organizational contexts to case processing strategies and these strategies to sentencing outcomes. Notes, tables, references, appendixes, index