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The ASC Division on Corrections & Sentencing Handbook Series
Handbook on Sentencing Policies and Practices in the 21st Century
Editors: Cassia Spohn and Pauline K. Brennan Series Editors: Pamela K. Lattimore and John R. Hepburn
Vol. 4
HANDBOOK ON SENTENCING POLICIES AND PRACTICES IN THE 21ST CENTURY
The Handbook on Sentencing Policies and Practices in the 21st Century focuses on the evolution and consequences of sentencing policies and practices, with sentencing broadly defined to include plea bargaining, judicial and juror decision-making, and alternatives to incarceration, including participation in problem-solving courts. This collection of essays and reports of original research explores how sentencing policies and practices, both in the United States and internationally, have evolved, explores important issues raised by guideline and non-guideline sentencing, and provides an overview of recent research on plea bargaining in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Other topics include the role of criminal history in sentencing, the past and future of capital punishment, strategies for reducing mass incarceration, problem-solving courts, and restorative justice practices. Each chapter summarizes what is known, identifies the gaps in the research, and discusses the theoretical, empirical, and policy implications of the research findings. The volume is grounded in current knowledge about the specific topics, but also presents new material that reflects the thinking of the leading minds in the field and that outlines a research agenda for the future. This is Volume 4 of the American Society of Criminology’s Division on Corrections and Sentencing handbook series. Previous volumes focused on risk assessment, disparities in punishment, and the consequences of punishment decisions. The handbooks provide a comprehensive overview of these topics for scholars, students, practitioners, and policymakers. Cassia Spohn is a Foundation Professor and Director of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University. She is a Fellow of the American Society of Criminology, a Fellow of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and a Fellow of the Western Society of Criminology. Her research interests include prosecutorial and judicial decision-making, the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, crime and justice, and sexual assault case-processing decisions. Pauline K. Brennan is a Professor and the Ph.D. Program Director for the School of Criminology and Justice Studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Her research focuses on racial and gender inequities in court processing, corrections policy, and issues related to female offenders and victims. Her work has appeared in the top journals in the field, including Justice Quarterly, The Journal of Quantitative Criminology, and Criminal Justice and Behavior.
THE ASC DIVISION ON CORRECTIONS & SENTENCING HANDBOOK SERIES Edited by Pamela K. Lattimore and John R. Hepburn.
The American Society of Criminology’s Division on Corrections & Sentencing sponsors a series of volumes published by Routledge on seminal and topical issues that span the fields of sentencing and corrections. The critical essays, reviews, and original research in each volume provide a comprehensive assessment of the current state of knowledge, contribute to public policy discussions, and identify future research directions. Each thematic volume focuses on a single topical issue that intersects with corrections and sentencing research. The contents are eclectic in regard to disciplinary foci, theoretical frameworks and perspectives, and research methodologies. EDITORIAL BOARD Gaylene Armstrong, University of Nebraska Omaha Todd Clear, Rutgers University Francis T. Cullen, University of Cincinnati Jodi Lane, University of Florida Dan Mears, Florida State University Joan Petersilia, Stanford University Cassia Spohn, Arizona State University Jeffery Ulmer, Pennsylvania State University Steve Van Dine, Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction Christy Visher, University of Delaware HANDBOOK ON RISK AND NEED ASSESSMENT Theory and Practice Taxman HANDBOOK ON PUNISHMENT DECISIONS Locations of Disparity Ulmer and Bradley HANDBOOK ON THE CONSEQUENCES OF SENTENCING AND PUNISHMENT DECISIONS Huebner and Frost HANDBOOK ON SENTENCING POLICIES AND PRACTICES IN THE 21ST CENTURY Spohn and Brennan
HANDBOOK ON SENTENCING POLICIES AND PRACTICES IN THE 21ST CENTURY
Edited by Cassia Spohn and Pauline K. Brennan
First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
First issued in paperback 2020 Copyright © 2020 Taylor & Francis The right of Cassia Spohn and Pauline K. Brennan to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Spohn, Cassia, editor. | Brennan, Pauline Katherine, 1967– editor. Title: Handbook on sentencing policies and practices in the 21st century / Cassia Spohn & Pauline K. Brennan. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2019. | Series: American Society of Criminology§s Division on Corrections and Sentencing handbook series ; Volume 4 Identifiers: LCCN 2019011041 (print) | LCCN 2019012916 (ebook) | ISBN 9780429027765 (Ebook) | ISBN 9780367136499 (hardback) Subjects: LCSH: Sentences (Criminal procedure)–English-speaking countries. Classification: LCC K5121 (ebook) | LCC K5121 .H36 2019 (print) | DDC 345/.0772–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019011041 ISBN: 978-0-367-13649-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-53098-3 (pbk) Typeset in Bembo by Newgen Publishing UK
We dedicate this book to Chet Britt, Marie Griffin, and Ben Steiner, exemplary scholars within the Division on Corrections and Sentencing. You are deeply missed by your friends and colleagues. Chester L. Britt, III (1962–2016) Professor, Iowa State University Marie Griffin (1967–2016) Professor, Arizona State University Benjamin M. Steiner (1975–2019) Professor, University of Nebraska Omaha
CONTENTS
Contributors
x
Sentencing Policies and Practices in the 21st Century: An Introduction Cassia Spohn and Pauline K. Brennan
1
PART I
The Evolution of Sentencing Policies and Practices
17
1
The Transformation of Sentencing in the 21st Century Megan C. Kurlychek and John H. Kramer
19
2
Sentencing Guidelines in the United States Richard S. Frase and Kelly Lyn Mitchell
43
3
Sentencing Guidelines Outside the United States Julian V. Roberts and Lyndon Harris
68
PART II
Issues in Guideline and Non-Guideline Sentencing 4
Inter-district Differences and Extra-legal Disparity in Federal Sentencing: The Trees Are “Substantially” More Important Than the Forest Richard D. Hartley
vii
87
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Contents
5 Minimum Sentencing for Serious Offenses: Lessons from Australia Kate Fitz-Gibbon and James Roffee 6 Discretionary Release Practices for Juveniles Facing Life: A Review of State Parole and Resentencing Procedures Stuti S. Kokkalera and Simon I. Singer
114
129
PART III
151
Plea Bargaining 7 Plea Negotiations: An Australian Perspective Arie Freiberg and Asher Flynn
153
8 Plea Bargaining in the Shadow of the Trial Amy Dezember and Allison D. Redlich
168
9 Estimating the Size of Plea Discounts: Why Does It Matter? Shi Yan
188
10 To Plead or Not to Plead? “Guilt” is the Question: Rethinking Sentencing and Plea Decision-Making in Anglo-American Countries Jay Gormley and Cyrus Tata
208
PART IV
Capital Punishment
235
11 Evolving Attitudes toward Capital Punishment Amy L. Anderson,Weng-Fong Chao, and Philip Schwadel
237
12 Disparities in Death Penalty Prosecution and Punishment: A Review of Recent Research and an Expanded Agenda Jeffery T. Ulmer and Lily Hanrath
254
PART V
Current Controversies
281
13 Rethinking the Role of Criminal History in Sentencing Rhys Hester, Richard S. Frase, Julia Laskorunsky, and Kelly Lyn Mitchell
283
14 AB109 in California: Realignment, Decarceration and Crime in Los Angeles County Katharine Tellis and Cassia Spohn
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Contents
15 The Problem with Problem-solving Courts: The Black Box Remains Unopened after Thirty Years Eileen M. Ahlin and Anne S. Douds
339
16 Restorative Justice Practices and Challenges in the United States Jennifer L. Lanterman
360
Index
378
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CONTRIBUTORS
Dr. Eileen M. Ahlin is Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice in the School of Public Affairs at Penn State Harrisburg. Her research focuses primarily on the use of formal and informal social controls across the ecological framework to prevent and reduce criminal behavior. Her research appears in the journals such as Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Aggression and Violent Behavior, Journal of Criminal Justice, and American Journal of Public Health. She is a co-recipient of the 2016 W. E. B. Du Bois Fellowship from the National Institute of Justice, for research examining the role of immigrant generation status and race/ethnicity on the effects of inner-city mobility on youth violence and exposure to violence. Amy L. Anderson is Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Nebraska Omaha. Her research examines the relationship between social contexts and delinquency and public perceptions of criminal justice policies. Professor Anderson’s research has been published in Criminology, Justice Quarterly, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology, and other peer-reviewed journals. Pauline K. Brennan is Professor and the Ph.D. Program Director for the School of Criminology and Justice Studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Her research focuses on racial and gender inequities in court processing, corrections policy, and issues related to female offenders and victims. She has been the principal investigator on projects funded by the National Institute of Corrections and the Foundation for the Carolinas, and has worked closely on policy-relevant research with community practitioners in North Carolina, Nebraska, and Iowa. Her work has appeared in the top journals in the field, including Justice Quarterly, The Journal of Quantitative Criminology, and Criminal Justice and Behavior. Weng-Fong Chao is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Nebraska Omaha. His current research interests include criminological theories, public opinion about crime and justice, and research methods and statistics. Amy Dezember is a doctoral candidate in Criminology, Law and Society at George Mason University. Her research interests include plea bargaining, Alford pleas, legal decision-making, and
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the role of evidence in the decision-making process. Her dissertation research examines Alford pleas and the presumption of strong evidence, which includes examining court records and conducting interviews with prosecutors, judges, and defense attorneys to learn more about the process for offering, negotiating, and accepting these unique pleas. In addition to her dissertation research, she currently works as a Graduate Research Assistant on a National Science Foundation and National Institute of Justice funded-project looking at youth and adult engagement in the guilty plea process. She has been published in Psychology, Public Policy, and Law and has written numerous book chapters about misdemeanor guilty pleas and the use of risk assessments in the criminal justice system. Anne S. Douds, JD, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Public Policy at Gettysburg College and the faculty lead for the Eisenhower Institute’s Women and Leadership Program. A retired trial attorney with more than 20 years of litigation experience, Dr. Douds’ research centers on court program evaluations, judicial and legal policy analysis, and social justice issues. Dr. Kate Fitz-Gibbon is Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Monash University,Victoria, Australia, and an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Law and Social Justice at University of Liverpool (UK). She is a lead researcher in the Monash Centre for Gender and Family Violence Prevention. Dr. Fitz-Gibbon conducts research in the area of family violence, legal responses to lethal violence, youth justice and the effects of homicide law and sentencing reform in Australian and international jurisdictions. Dr. Fitz-Gibbon has served as an advisor on homicide reform law, family violence, youth justice, and sentencing law reviews in several Australian and international jurisdictions. Dr. Asher Flynn is Associate Professor of Criminology, and Director of the Social and Political Sciences Graduate Research Program at Monash University, Australia. Dr Flynn’s research utilizes a sociolegal framework to understand, critique and transform legal policy and practice, with a particular focus on gendered and technology-facilitated violence. Informed by national and international context, her research examines experiences of accessing and negotiating justice. She has published widely on technology-facilitated violence and harassment, with a specific focus on image-based sexual abuse, as well as sexual and gender-based violence, plea negotiations, and access to justice. Dr. Flynn is Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council Discovery Project and recently completed two Australian Criminology Research Council-funded projects. Richard S. Frase is the Benjamin Berger Professor of Criminal Law at the University of Minnesota Law School and Co-Director of the Law School’s Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice. His principal research interests pertain to Minnesota’s and other state sentencing guidelines, purposes and limits of punishment, comparative criminal procedure, and comparative sentencing within the US and between the US and other Western nations. He teaches criminal law, criminal procedure, and the federal defense clinic, and has previously taught prosecution clinics operating in state and federal courts. His seminars include sentencing guidelines, sentencing policy, and comparative criminal procedure. After earning a B.A. in Psychology from Haverford College and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, he practiced law in Chicago before joining the Minnesota faculty. He is the author or co-editor of ten books and over 95 articles, chapters, and essays on criminal justice topics. Arie Freiberg is Emeritus Professor of Law, Monash University, Victoria, Australia. He is the chair of the Victorian and Tasmanian Sentencing Advisory Councils. He has written extensively on sentencing, non-adversarial justice and regulatory theory.
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Jay Gormley, LLB Hons (First Class), MPhil (Law) has submitted his Ph.D. thesis at the Strathclyde University Law School. His thesis interrogated the nature and extent of sentence discounting for guilty pleas in Scotland and involved empirical research with defense lawyers, prosecutors, judges, and defendants. The Strathclyde Excellence Scholarship provided funding for Dr. Gormley’s doctoral education. In 2017 he was also awarded a doctoral internship with the Scottish Prison Service sponsored by the UK Economic & Social Research Council’s Scottish Graduate School of Social Sciences. He has a keen interest in criminal justice, processual legal justice, and is a member of the ESC Working Group on Sentencing and Penal-Decision Making. He teaches on the LLB modules in Legal Process and in Law and Society. Lily Hanrath is a Criminology Ph.D. Candidate at Penn State University. Her work focuses on courts and sentencing, and morality and deviance. Lyndon Harris is currently reading for a DPhil in criminology at the University of Oxford. He is a Lecturer in Criminal Law at Keble College, University of Oxford, and is a criminal barrister. He is the author of Thomas’ Sentencing Referencer, editor of Current Sentencing Practice, and a contributing editor to Archbold, Criminal Pleading, Evidence and Practice. Richard D. Hartley, Ph.D., is Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Texas, San Antonio. His research examines decision-making practices surrounding criminal court processes and has been funded by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the American Statistical Association, as well as the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). His most recent NIJ funded projects include a multi-site evaluation of veterans treatment courts, and a study examining the correlates of federal prosecutorial charging decisions. His currently published research appears in Justice Quarterly, Journal of Criminal Justice, and Criminal Justice Policy Review. Rhys Hester is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology & Criminal Justice at Clemson University, South Carolina. His research has been published in Criminology, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, and Crime and Justice: A Review of Research. He holds a J.D. and a Ph.D. and previously served as a research fellow at the University of Minnesota Law School’s Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, and was also Deputy Director of the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing. Stuti S. Kokkalera is a doctoral candidate in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University. Her current research focuses on state discretionary release practices for juveniles sentenced to life. Her articles have been published in Societies, Journal of Youth and Adolescence, and The Criminologist. John H. Kramer is Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Criminology at the Pennsylvania State University where recently the John Kramer Professorship in Criminology was established. He taught at Mankato State University from 1970–1973 and at Penn State from 1973 until retirement in 2015. His career included serving as Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing from 1979–1998 and as Staff Director of the United States Sentencing Commission from 1996–1998. Dr. Kramer’s research focuses on sentencing, sentencing disparity, and sentencing reform and his research has been published in major journals in the field including Criminology. His book, Sentencing Guidelines: Lessons from Pennsylvania, co-authored with Dr. Jeff Ulmer, in 2009, examined the history and impact of the Pennsylvania sentencing guidelines. He recently completed a study of the death penalty in Pennsylvania with Drs. Jeff Ulmer and Gary Zajak. Megan C. Kurlychek is Associate Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at the University at Albany. She also serves as Executive Director of the New York State Youth Justice Institute and Editor xii
Contributors
of Justice Quarterly. Her primary research interests encompass the courts and sentencing, the juvenile justice system and juvenile delinquency, and the lasting impact of a juvenile or criminal record on later life outcomes. Her work has been published in the field’s top journals, including Criminology, Criminology and Public Policy, Justice Quarterly, and Punishment and Society. Jennifer L. Lanterman is Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her research focuses on the management and treatment of high-risk and highneed offenders, cultural aspects of firearm violence, and restorative practices. Her recent work has appeared in Criminal Justice and Behavior, Criminology and Public Policy, Dialogues in Social Justice, Feminist Criminology, Journal of Qualitative Criminal Justice and Criminology, Justice Research and Policy, Studies in Social Justice, and The Prison Journal. Julia Laskorunsky is Research Fellow at the Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice. She is working on the Criminal History Enhancements Project and the Parole Release and Revocation Project. She received her Ph.D. in Criminology from Pennsylvania State University. Her dissertation focused on the use of actuarial risk assessments at sentencing and was funded by the National Institute of Justice Dissertation Fellowship. Dr. Laskorunsky’s research focuses on the ways sentencing structures and correctional practices affect incarceration rates and racial disparity in the criminal justice system. Her work can be seen in the Journal of Crime and Justice, Advancing Criminology and Criminal Justice Policy, and Oxford Handbooks Online. She was formerly a Deputy Project Director and Research Assistant for Development Services Group, Inc., where she worked on multiple projects for the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and the National Institute of Justice. Kelly Lyn Mitchell is the Executive Director of the Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, at the University of Minnesota Law School. She was the Executive Director of the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission from 2011 to 2014, and served as the President of the National Association of Sentencing Commissions from 2014–2017. Prior to joining the Robina Institute, she worked at the Minnesota Judicial Branch from 2001–2011 as a staff attorney and manager, where she served as the Branch’s liaison to other criminal justice agencies and was responsible for several statewide programs and services such as drug courts, the court interpreter program, and examiner services for sex offender civil commitment exams. She also provided legal support to trial court judges and court administrators on issues ranging from criminal and juvenile delinquency law to court records access and fines and fees in the criminal justice system. She also provided legal support for several Minnesota Supreme Court rules and policy committees, and in this role led efforts to fully revise the Minnesota Rules of Criminal Procedure and the Minnesota Juvenile Delinquency Rules of Procedure. Over the course of her career, Ms. Mitchell has held numerous appointments on committees and task forces on issues such as prison population control, probation supervision, sex offender management, and collateral consequences. She earned her J.D. from the University of North Dakota Law School, and has a Master’s in Public Policy from the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs. Allison D. Redlich is Professor of Criminology, Law and Society at George Mason University, and serves as the department’s Associate Chair and Graduate Director. She was trained as an experimental psychologist but uses multiple methods to conduct her research. To a large degree, her research centers on whether legal decision-making is knowing, intelligent, and voluntary. She examines such decision-making in vulnerable (juveniles and persons with mental health problems) and nonvulnerable defendants, and across several different contexts—in the interrogation room, during the guilty plea process, and in mental health courts. Professor Redlich also studies wrongful convictions, with a particular focus on false confessions and false guilty pleas. In addition to publishing numerous xiii
Contributors
articles on these and related topics, she has co-authored/edited five books. To pursue her research, Professor Redlich has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Justice, the Brain and Behavior Research Association, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, among others. Julian Roberts is Professor of Criminology in the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford. He was a member of the Sentencing Council of England and Wales from 2009–2018. Dr. James Roffee is Associate Professor of Law, and Associate Dean International in the Faculty of Business and Law at Swinburne University of Technology. James leads the Faculty’s international portfolio; this includes strategic and operational responsibility for delivery of undergraduate and postgraduate transnational education, student mobility and exchange, bespoke programs for industry partners, and sponsored students. Prior to joining Swinburne in 2018, James received the 2017 ViceChancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence from Monash University where he held positions in the Faculty of Business and Economics and the Faculty of Arts. He fosters an inclusive approach to teaching and is recognized as a leader and innovator within the field of inclusive higher education. James’s research in criminal justice and criminology concerns victimization, hate- and bias-motivated crime, and serious and violent offenses. James was appointed to the Victorian Government’s LGBTI Taskforce Justice Working Group in 2017. Philip Schwadel is Professor of Sociology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His research examines the intersections of religion, politics, social status, and social change. Recent research focuses on how social contexts influence the effects of religion and politics on public opinion. Professor Schwadel’s research has been published in Social Forces, Social Science Research, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Criminology, and other peer-reviewed journals. Simon I. Singer is Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University. His scholarship focuses on youth crime and justice. He has received awards from the American Sociological Association (Albert Reiss Book Award, 1999) for his book, Recriminalizing Delinquency, and from the American Society of Criminology (Hindelang Book Award, 2014) for his most recent book, America’s Safest City. His current research focuses on juveniles subject to long-term adult maximum sentences. Cassia Spohn is Foundation Professor and Director of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University. She is a Fellow of the American Society of Criminology, a Fellow of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and a Fellow of the Western Society of Criminology. She is the recipient of numerous academic awards, including the University of Nebraska Outstanding Research and Creative Activity Award, the W. E. B. DuBois Award for Contributions to Research on Crime and Race/Ethnicity, and Arizona State University’s Faculty Achievement Award for DefiningEdge Research in the Social Sciences. She is the author or co-author of seven books, including The Color of Justice: Race, Ethnicity and Crime in America, Policing and Prosecuting Sexual Assault: Inside the Criminal Justice System, How Do Judges Decide? The Search for Fairness and Equity in Sentencing and Drugs, Crime and Justice. Her research interests include prosecutorial and judicial decision-making, the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, crime and justice, and sexual assault case-processing decisions. She currently is a member of the Defense Advisory Committee on the Investigation, Prosecution and Defense of Sexual Assault in the Military. She also serves as a consultant to the MacArthur Foundation’s project on advancing prosecutorial effectiveness and fairness through data and innovation. In 2020 she will be the president of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences.
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Contributors
Professor Cyrus Tata, Ph.D., FRSA is Professor of Law and Criminal Justice at Strathclyde University Law School, where he is Director of the Centre for Law, Crime and Justice, and Programme Director of the LLM/MSc in Criminal Justice & Penal Change. For over 25 years he has conducted and published research into various aspects of criminal justice in Scotland and abroad, including: the impact of legal aid reforms; plea decision-making and plea negotiation; lawyer-client relations; the role of pre-sentence reports, mitigation and individualization, sentencing; and the use of information technology (including, for example, the introduction of a Sentencing Information System for the High Court). He is founder and chair of the European Group on Sentencing and Penal Decision-Making (a network of academic, policy, and practice members in over 25 countries). Regularly invited to speak to policy and practice audiences around the world, he has also served as adviser to governments in several countries and recently to the senior judiciary and court service of the Irish Republic and is currently assisting Northern Ireland’s Review of Sentencing Policy. He is currently collaborating in research into public attitudes to sentencing, including in specific areas such as causing death by driving offenses and sexual offenses. He is currently leading a small exploratory study examining the communication and interpretation of sentencing in the same cases from the perspectives of: the judicial sentencer, the defense lawyer, and the sentenced person. He is also currently working (with partners in Italy, Sweden, and the USA), on a European Research Council-funded research study into cognition-emotion processes in the criminal process. His new book, Sentencing as a Social Process: ReThinking Research & Policy, will be published in 2019. In 2017 he was invited and elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Dr. Katharine Tellis is Associate Professor and the Director of the School of Criminal Justice and Criminalistics at California State University, Los Angeles. A social worker and criminologist by training, her areas of interest center on intersectionality, criminal justice policy, and violence prevention. She received a B.A. in Gender Studies and a Master’s in Social Welfare from UCLA, and a Ph.D. in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Nebraska Omaha. Jeffery T. Ulmer is Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Penn State University, and also serves as Associate Department Head. His work spans topics such as courts and sentencing, criminological theory and symbolic interactionism, religion and crime, and violent crime. He received the 2001 Distinguished New Scholar Award and the 2012 Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Society of Criminology’s Division on Corrections and Sentencing. He and his coauthors won the American Society of Criminology’s 2012 Outstanding Article Award. He and Darrell Steffensmeier were also awarded the ASC’s 2006 Hindelang Award for Confessions of a Dying Thief: Understanding Criminal Careers and Illegal Enterprise (2005, Transaction). Shi Yan is Assistant Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions, Arizona State University. His research interests include sentencing, plea bargaining, and criminal careers. His research has been published in Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Justice Quarterly, Crime & Delinquency, among others.
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The Handbook on Sentencing Policies and Practices in the 21st Century focuses on the evolution and consequences of sentencing policies and practices, with sentencing broadly defined to include plea bargaining, judicial and juror-decision making, and alternatives to incarceration, including participation in problem-solving courts. This collection of essays and reports of original research explores how sentencing policies and practices, both in the United States and internationally, have evolved, explores important issues raised by guideline and non-guideline sentencing, and provides an overview of recent research on plea bargaining in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Other topics include the role of criminal history in sentencing, the past and future of capital punishment, strategies for reducing mass incarceration, problem-solving courts, and restorative justice practices. Each chapter summarizes what is known, identifies the gaps in the research, and discusses the theoretical, empirical, and policy implications of the research findings. The volume is grounded in current knowledge about the specific topics, but also presents new material that reflects the thinking of the leading minds in the field and that outlines a research agenda for the future. This is Volume 4 of the American Society of Criminology’s Division on Corrections and Sentencing handbook series. Previous volumes focused on risk assessment, disparities in punishment, and the consequences of punishment decisions. The handbooks provide a comprehensive overview of these topics for scholars, students, practitioners, and policymakers. Cassia Spohn is a Foundation Professor and Director of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University. She is a Fellow of the American Society of Criminology, a Fellow of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and a Fellow of the Western Society of Criminology. Her research interests include prosecutorial and judicial decision-making, the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, crime and justice, and sexual assault case-processing decisions. Pauline K. Brennan is a Professor and the Ph.D. Program Director for the School of Criminology and Justice Studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Her research focuses on racial and gender inequities in court processing, corrections policy, and issues related to female offenders and victims. Her work has appeared in the top journals in the field, including Justice Quarterly, The Journal of Quantitative Criminology, and Criminal Justice and Behavior.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE / SENTENCING
ISBN 978-0-367-53098-3
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