Influence of Sentencing Goals on Judicial Decision-Making

• NCJ Number: 93938
• Author(s): M M Hale
• Date Published: 1984
• Length: 129 pages
• Grant Number(s): 83-IJ-CX-0031
• Sponsoring Agency: National Institute of Justice (NIJ); US Dept of Justice NIJ Pub
• Publication Format: Dissertation/Thesis
• Publication Type: Thesis/Dissertation
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: John Hopkins University - doctoral dissertation

Annotation

Although judges may individually have well-defined philosophies regarding sanctioning, their sentencing behavior reflects their perceptions of the priorities accorded each goal by the correctional system.

Abstract

Therefore, a well-articulated, systemwide theory of sanctions might reduce the sentencing disparity which appears to be associated with differing perceptions of the correctional system. Study data came from nine circuit or district court judges from a large eastern city. They ranked deterrence, incapacitation, punishment, and rehabilitation according to their perceived relative importance in the State correctional system and according to their personal beliefs regarding what these priorities should be. Differences in their sentencing decisions were assessed with respect to the sentence length imposed on 235 convicted offenders. Offense seriousness, prior adult record, marital status, drug use, and age explained about 21 percent of the variance in sentence length. Another 15 percent of the variance resulted from the identity of the sentencing judge. Unexpectedly, the judge's personal goal structure explained only from .2 to 2 percent of the variance in sentence length. In contrast, the judges' perceptions of the goal structure in the correctional system explained from 1.7 to 7.2 percent of the variance in sentence length. Figures, appendixes presenting data tables, and 133 references are included.