Fair sentencing is individualized sentencing. Unwarranted disparity is defined as different treatment of individual offenders who are similar in relevant ways, or similar treatment of individual offenders who differ in characteristics that are relevant to the purposes of sentencing. Membership in a particular demographic group is not relevant to the purposes of sentencing, and there is no reaso...

INTRODUCTION: SENTENCING AND RACE........................ 328 I. Laboratory Studies on the Influence of Afrocentric Features on Judgment ....................................................... 333 A. Perceptions of Afrocentric Features .................................333 B. Demonstrating the Influence of Afrocentric Features on Judgment................................................334 C. Exp...

Title of thesis: REFOCUSING ON GENDER: CAN FOCAL CONCERNS THEORY EXPLAIN GENDER DISPARITIES IN SENTENCING OUTCOMES? Rebecca L. Richardson, Master of Arts, 2015 Thesis directed by: Professor Brian Johnson Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice Focal concerns theory argues that sentencing decisions reflect judges’ beliefs about three primary considerations: blameworthiness of the defendan...

In spite of its centrality in the criminal justice system, the principle of proportionality is poorly defined, and its role in judicial sentencing rests on shaky ground. The idea that criminal sanctions should be imposed only in proportion to those crimes to which they seek to respond is well recognised and ostensibly applied in most modern legal systems. However, by examining the role of propo...

Forum Sentencing is an adult-focussed restorative justice program that operates in two NSW sites: Liverpool and Tweed. Under the scheme, young adults who meet certain eligibility and suitability criteria can have their matter dealt with by way of a community conference rather than being dealt with in a conventional court setting. The aim of the current study was to determine whether offenders w...

American sentencing systems have fragmented since the modern sentencing reform movement began in the 1970s and predominant retributive theories of punishment have become obsolete. Indeterminate sentencing was ubiquitous, but when it lost credibility, no single approach replaced it. Every American jurisdiction has a crazy quilt of diverse and, in principle if not practice, irreconcilable element...

A large portion of research on criminal sentencing over the past few decades has focused on the role of defendant race. The modal approach has encompassed regression-based studies of whether defendant race exerts a main effect on imprisonment decisions. Recent studies have employed more sophisticated statistical models, have incorporated information on both race and ethnicity, and have increasi...

Victim impact evidence is presented during sentencing hearings to convey the harm experienced by victims and victims’ relatives as a result of a crime. Its use in capital cases is highly controversial. Some argue that the Supreme Court’s decision to allow the admission of victim impact statements (VIS) during capital sentencing proceedings (Payne v. Tennessee, 1991) invites prejudice and judgme...

Charge bargaining is a potentially important form of discretion in criminal sentencing that is obscured in many studies of sentencing outcomes. Our procedure to measure the difference in sentencing outcomes caused by plea bargain emphasizes the amount, in months, that the sentence length is reduced. Using this measure, we compare prosecutorial discretion across counties in two different states....

INTRODUCTION “[D]eath is different.” When used to punish, death taps society’s most primal urges. It is meant to be a deterrent for potential offenders, triggering in them the innate reflex for self-preservation. For society, it is meant to feed the primal desire for retribution. For these very reasons, it is often claimed that death is only reserved for the worst of the worst. However, in tryi...