NCJ Number
79810
Journal
Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 9 Issue: 4 Dated: (1981) Pages: 305-316
Date Published
1981
Length
10 pages
Annotation
Using a secondary sample of 1,664 convicted Iowa felony offenders, this study examined the effects of court location on criminal sentencing and found that legal considerations were of greater importance to sentences imposed by urban courts while the opposite was true in rural courts.
Abstract
Previous studies on sentencing disparity are reviewed which suggest that geographic location is a factor in differing sentencing practices. These findings, coupled with research on rural-urban attitudes and values, provide a rationale for assuming that sentences imposed on convicted offenders in rural, urban, and suburban courts might differ. Data for this study consisted of 1,664 convicted felony offenders selected from records maintained by the Iowa Bureau of Correctional Evaluation and the Iowa Board of Parole. All cases had been sentenced in 1975 or 1976, and offenders sentenced for first degree murder were excluded. The following variables were employed: offenses, number of prior adult convictions, age, race, sex, the rural-urban composition of the county from which the offender was sentenced, and the type of sentence imposed. Counties with 33 percent or less of their population classified as urban by the Census Bureau were labeled as rural, counties with 34 to 67 percent of their population classified as urban were labeled suburban, and counties with 68 percent or more of the population classified as urban were designated as urban. With respect to age, analysis of the data indicated that older offenders were more likely to receive a prison sentence and that this was more pronounced in rural and suburban than in urban courts. Nonwhite offenders were more likely to receive a prison sentence, but this probability was higher in rural than in suburban and urban courts. The analysis also suggested that female offenders were less likely to receive a prison sentence than their male counterparts in rural courts. An examination of the legal and extralegal variables in a multivariate context revealed that legal variables carried a greater weight in accounting for type of sentence in urban as compared to suburban and rural courts. Conversely, extralegal variables had a greater impact on sentencing in rural, and to a limited degree, suburban courts. Implications of these findings for sentencing reform are discussed. Tables and 18 references are included.