NCJ Number
83335
Journal
Criminal Justice Review Volume: 6 Issue: 2 Dated: (Fall 1981) Pages: 31-37
Date Published
1982
Length
7 pages
Annotation
This article examines the relationship between length of sentence and court location in urban, suburban, or rural county, as well as associations between length of sentence and type of sentence.
Abstract
The article is a companion piece to a previous study conducted in 1981. Data for this study consisted of the previously employed secondary sample of 1,664 convicted Iowa felony offenders derived from archival sources including the Iowa Division of Adult Corrections and the Bureau of Correctional Evaluation. The first step in the analysis was to examine the simple or zero order relationship between court setting and length of sentence. Pearson's r was employed to measure the extent of association. The same process was undertaken regarding within-court statistics. Finally, analysis was completed regarding those offenders who were given a prison commitment. Findings revealed that with respect to sentence length, no disparity occurred among any of the three court settings. With respect to court location, the rural-urban variable appears to function as a conditional variable at the judicial stage of the sentencing process. At this stage of the sentencing process it was found that older and nonwhite offenders sentenced by rural courts, as well as older offenders sentenced by suburban courts, were more likely to receive a prison sentence. Future research efforts should consider such environmental variables as court setting and interaction which may occur among the factors in the process of moving from type to length of sentence. Three footnotes, 2 tables, and 11 references are provided.