Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
1,642,228
result(s) for
"SENTENCES (CRIMINAL)"
Sort by:
Evidence-Based Sentencing and the Scientific Rationalization of Discrimination
This Article critiques, on legal and empirical grounds, the growing trend of basing criminal sentences on actuarial recidivism risk prediction instruments that include demographic and socioeconomic variables. largue that this practice violates the Equal Protection Clause and is bad policy: an explicit embrace of otherwise-condemned discrimination, sanitized by scientific language. To demonstrate that this practice raises serious constitutional concerns, I comprehensively review the relevant case law, much of which has been ignored by existing literature. To demonstrate that the policy is not justified by countervailing state interests, I review the empirical evidence underlying the instruments. I show that they provide wildly imprecise individual risk predictions, that there is no compelling evidence that they outperform judges' informal predictions, that less discriminatory alternatives would likely perform as well, and that the instruments do not even address the right question: the effect of a given sentencing decision on recidivism risk. Finally, I also present new empirical evidence, based on a randomized experiment using fictional cases, suggesting that these instruments should not be expected merely to substitute actuarial predictions for less scientific risk assessments but instead to increase the weight given to recidivism risk versus other sentencing considerations.
Journal Article
Sentencing policy and social justice
Sentencing policy and social justice' argues that the promotion of social justice should become a key objective of sentencing policy, advancing the argument that the legitimacy of sentencing ultimately depends upon the strength of the relationship between social morality and penal ideology. It sheds light on how shared moral values can influence sentencing policy at a time when relationships of community appear increasingly fragmented, arguing that sentencing will be better placed to make a positive contribution to social justice if it becomes more sensitive to the commonly-accepted moral boundaries that underpin adherence to the 'rule of law'.
Book
Judging Risk
Risk assessment plays an increasingly pervasive role in criminal justice in the United States at all stages of the process—from policing to pretrial detention, sentencing, corrections, and parole. As efforts to reduce mass incarceration have led to the adoption of risk-assessment tools, critics have begun to ask whether various instruments in use are valid, and whether they might reinforce rather than reduce bias in the criminal justice system. Such questions, however, have largely neglected how decision-makers use risk assessment in practice. In this Article, we explore the judging of risk assessment and why decision-makers so often fail to consistently use quantitative risk assessment tools.
We present the results of a novel set of studies of both judicial decision-making and attitudes towards risk assessment. In our first study, we find that even in Virginia, whose risk assessment instrument has been hailed as a national model for the use of risk assessment, sentencing data indicates that judicial use of risk assessment is highly variable. In our second study, the first comprehensive survey of its kind, we also find quite divided judicial attitudes towards risk assessment in sentencing practice. Even if, in theory, an instrument can better sort offenders in less need of jail or prison, in practice, decision-makers may not use it as intended.
Still more fundamentally, in criminal justice, unlike in other areas of the law, one does not have detailed regulations concerning the use of risk assessment that specify the content of assessment criteria, the peer review process, and standards for judicial review. We make recommendations for how to better convey risk assessment information to judges and other decision-makers, and how to structure that decision-making based on common assumptions and goals. We argue that judges and lawmakers must revisit the use of risk assessment in practice. We conclude by setting out a roadmap for the use of risk information in criminal justice. Unless judges and lawmakers regulate the judging of risk assessment, the risk-assessment revolution in criminal justice will not succeed in addressing mass incarceration.
Journal Article
Previous Convictions at Sentencing
This latest volume in the Penal Theory and Penal Ethics series addresses one of the oldest and most contested questions in the field of criminal sentencing: should an offender's previous convictions affect the sentence? This question provokes a series of others: Is it possible to justify a discount for first offenders within a retributive sentencing framework? How should previous convictions enter into the sentencing equation? At what point should prior misconduct cease to count for the purposes of fresh sentencing? Should similar previous convictions count more than convictions unrelated to the current offence? Statutory sentencing regimes around the world incorporate provisions which mandate harsher treatment of repeat offenders. Although there is an extensive literature on the definition and use of criminal history information, the emphasis here, as befits a volume in the series, is on the theoretical and normative aspects of considering previous convictions at sentencing. Several authors explore the theory underlying the practice of mitigating the punishments for first offenders, while others put forth arguments for enhancing sentences for recidivists. The practice of sentencing repeat offenders in two jurisdictions (England and Wales, and Sweden) is also examined in detail.
eBook
Prosecutors, Race, and the Criminal Pipeline
This Article presents evidence that some state prosecutors use their discretion to reduce racial disparities in criminal sentences. This finding challenges the prevailing view that prosecutors compound disparities. Given prosecutors' positions as mediators in a sequential system, this Article analyzes how prosecutors respond to disparities they inherit from the past—and interprets their impacts in light of the accumulated disparities that already exist when they first open their case files. Specifically, I estimate how the sentencing penalty for prior convictions differs by defendant race using North Carolina state court records from 2010 to 2019. I find that the increase in the likelihood of a prison sentence for an additional prior conviction was 25% higher for white than Black defendants with similar arrests and criminal records. While Black and white defendants without criminal records were incarcerated at similar rates, white defendants with records were incarcerated at significantly higher rates. And the longer the record, the greater the divergence.
To understand this finding, I link an original survey of 203 prosecutors to their real-world cases. This survey-to-case linkage helps reveal how prosecutors' beliefs about past racial bias influence their decision-making. I find that the subset of prosecutors who attribute racial disparities in the criminal legal system to racial bias have lower prison rates for Black defendants with criminal records than facially similar white defendants, thereby offsetting past disparities.
In concrete terms, racial disparities in North Carolina prison rates in 2019 would have increased by 20% had the state mandated equal treatment of defendants with similar case files. These findings should lead reformers to exercise caution when considering calls to limit or eliminate prosecutorial discretion. Blinding prosecutors to defendant race—a policy that jurisdictions are increasingly implementing—may inadvertently increase disparities by neutralizing the offsetting effects of some prosecutors. While race-blind charging ensures that prosecutors do not introduce new bias, it also ensures that any past bias is passed through to current (and future) decisions.
Journal Article
THE NEW CIVIL DEATH: RETHINKING PUNISHMENT IN THE ERA OF MASS CONVICTION
Borrowing from its English forebears, the United States once had a form of punishment called civil death. Civil death extinguished most civil rights of a person convicted of a crime and largely put that person outside the law's protection. Civil death as an institution faded away in the middle of the twentieth century. Policymakers recognized that almost all convicted persons eventually rejoin society, and therefore, it was wise and fair to allow them to participate in society with some measure of equality.
Journal Article