Research on Sentencing The Search for Reform, Volume I (1983) / Chapter Skim
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6 Research Agenda for the Study of Sentencing
6 Research Agenda for the Study of Sentencing
Pages 259-282
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From page 259... ...
A BALANCED PROGRAM A balance between quick-response, highly targeted research projects and longer-term, more basic efforts is needed. Changes in sentencing policy must be viewed from a longer-term and broader perspective so that results of policy shifts can be assessed in the context of larger social processes and changes.
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From page 260... ...
CAPITALIZING ON NATURAL EXPERIMENTS THE IMPORTANCE OF TIMING Because of the limited opportunities for planned or designed interventions, evaluations of the impact of policy changes must rely heavily on natural experiments. Natural experiments arise, for example, when a prosecutor decides to test a new case-screening policy or a legislature enacts a new sentencing statute.
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From page 261... ...
Such quick reaction and initial assessments of feasibility would permit timely screening of opportunities to prevent premature funding of extensive and costly evaluations prior to adequate exploration of their potential and problems. DATA NEEDS Modest improvements in the data available in the existing data series and statistical systems maintained by various jurisdictions and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)
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From page 262... ...
For example, one cannot determine from existing national data the changes over time or variations across jurisdictions in the demographic characteristics, prior conviction records, offense types, and sentence characteristics of prisoners. In order for legislatures to consider the impact of sentencing policy on prisons, it is necessary to estimate the consequences of a particular policy, for example: imposing a particular determinate sentence for specified groups of offenses or imposing a particular mandatory minimum sentence for offenses involving weapons or for second-time felons.
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From page 263... ...
Most jurisdictions collect the former but each in its own idiosyncratic way; only a few collect the latter. Such disaggregated data are essential for understanding the outcomes of the criminal justice process and for developing projections of the impact on prison populations of various policy options.
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From page 264... ...
These should include qualitative studies that provide new insights and hypotheses for further testing and, when appropriate, greater use of experimental and quasi-experimental designs that will permit causal inferences associated with specific operational changes. DETERMINANTS OF SENTENCES DISCRIMINATION It is not likely that research will provide a definitive estimate of the influence of racial discrimination on sentence outcomes in general.
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From page 265... ...
Research on discrimination requires a variety of complementary methodological approaches—including structural modeling, longitudinal studies, statistical analyses of aggregate court-processing data, observation and interview techniques, and experimental and quasi-experimental designs to supplement the cross-sectional studies of discrimination that currently predominate. The social importance of discrimination suggests the need for continued research on this topic, but this research should not simply continue existing approaches to this topic.
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From page 266... ...
suggestion that there are subtleties in sentence discount policies needs further investigation. In particular, research should explore the extent to which court personnel in various settings distinguish between "dead bang" cases, in which conviction is a virtual certainty and for which the defendant may be "punished" for going to trial, and cases in which there is a real factual dispute and the legal ambiguities are felt to justify the additional expense of a trial.
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From page 267... ...
Providing answers to these questions will help to clarify the sources of disparity, thus focusing debate on whether the identified differences are warranted or not, which is a value question. Research on disparity, however, faces problems of measurement error arising from inadequately measured variables, omitted variables, and sample selection biases.
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From page 268... ...
study of judges who "ride circuit." Controlling for defendant and case attributes and for judge attributes and role conceptions, the decisions of judges who serve in several diverse communities can be examined to assess their responsiveness to local norms and to explore the sources of public influence on judicial decisions. An additional source of disparity associated with environmental constraints on judicial decisions, which may limit judges' willingness to sentence convicted offenders to confinement, is the physical conditions in local jail facilities and the availability of alternative sanctions (as well as judges' knowledge of each)
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From page 269... ...
Progress in modeling sentencing decisions requires fuller knowledge of the decision-making process. Methodological advances are needed to address problems of sample selection and measurement error and to develop better measures of the key variables.
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From page 270... ...
In conducting such prospective research on sentence development, a researcher can independently measure variables like level of planning and can tap decision makers' assessments of these variables by interviewing them prior to and following the decision. For example, judges might be interviewed immediately after a sentencing hearing or after reviewing case records in chambers; probation officers might be interviewed after completing a presentence report that includes sentencing recommendations; and prosecutors and defense lawyers might be interviewed immediately after pretrial negotiation conferences.
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From page 271... ...
Among the modeling problems that need to be addressed by future research on sentencing are those of omitted and inadequately measured variables and sample selection biases. Many potentially relevant variables are omitted from models of sentencing outcomes, particularly those investigating discrimination in sentencing.
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From page 272... ...
Such theories do not yet exist, so that any model will rest on a variety of questionable assumptions. Nevertheless, structural modeling presents an alternative approach to cross-sectional studies that rely on largely inadequate measures of the primary determinants of sentencing to understand sentencing outcomes; structural models of the case disposition process sharpen researchers' focus on areas of ignorance and suggest new hypotheses for further testing.
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From page 273... ...
. Further research addressing the problems of measurement error and sample selection biases should include basic methodological work that formally compares the alternative correction techniques and documents the relative effectiveness of each and the trade-offs among them.
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From page 274... ...
Efforts to scale certain key variables like offense seriousness and prior record, however, may usefully contribute to the model development effort proposed by providing useful insights into cognitive issues involved in individual decision making. STRUCTURING SENTENCING DECISIONS PREDICTION RESEARCH AND SELECTIVE INCAPACITATION The sentencing guidelines developed to date have emphasized current offense seriousness and prior criminal record.
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From page 275... ...
If an explicit selective incapacitation policy were implemented, the false negatives (i.e., those released who commit new crimes) would be easily identified, but the false positives (i.e., those imprisoned because they were predicted to commit crimes but who would not have done so)
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From page 276... ...
The problems of predicting offender criminality involve all the issues previously discussed regarding efforts to model sentencing outcomes: measurement, scaling, model misspecification, and selection bias. Any selective incapacitation scheme should have valid and reliable answers to the following questions: What are the magnitudes of the anticipated prediction errors?
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From page 277... ...
A policy change is not self-executing, and preliminary data suggest that the effects of some mandatory minimum sentencing statutes, bans on plea bargaining, and sentencing guidelines vary considerably, depending on the manner in which they were implemented. Qualitative examinations of the implementation process should be a part of impact evaluations, since they may provide the key to understanding the nature and
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From page 278... ...
Systematic interview and participant observation need to accompany quantitative evaluations as an essential part of the effort to understand sentencing behavior in a social and institutional context. Future evaluation studies should have more extended observation periods; time-series analyses should have several observation points rather than simple two-point, preinnovation and postinnovation, research designs.
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From page 279... ...
and later stages. Evaluations of mandatory minimum laws and pleabargaining bans, for example, should include data on pretrial dismissals and charging patterns as well as on sanctions imposed on convicted offenders.
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From page 280... ...
Absent such a focus, such studies should be given lower priority for funding than a change that is likely to have real effects and to become a candidate for replication elsewhere. SENTENCING POLICY AND PRISONS Sentencing policy should include consideration of the impact of changes on prison populations; hence, there should be support for improving techniques for estimating prison populations.
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From page 281... ...
There is a need to reconsider the question of the growth of prison populations; to develop models of prison capacity change that include exogenous demographic, social, political, legal, and economic factors that appear to determine variations across states and time periods; and to test the models in different states to provide more complex explanations for the variation found in the population-capacity relationship. For example, one might have expected that the current pressure of crowded prisons would be reflected in a mixture of building to increase capacity and reducing the severity of sanctions imposed on convicted offenders.
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From page 282... ...
In summary, there are a wide variety of important research questions regarding sentencing principles, policies, and practices. Studies are needed to overcome the methodological difficulties and address the substantive issues related to the determinants of sentences; the practical and theoretical implications of various approaches to structuring sentencing decisions; and the effects of changes in sentencing policies on criminal justice system practices, sentence outcomes, and prison populations.
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