Recent Sentencing Reforms in the United States - An Examination of Change in the Justice Process

• NCJ Number: 89377
• Author(s): L F 3rdTravis
• Date Published: 1982
• Length: 365 pages
• Sale Source: UMI Dissertation Services
• Publication Type: Thesis/Dissertation
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: *This document is currently unavailable from NCJRS. State University of New York at Albany doctoral dissertation

Annotation

This study applies the Agenda Building Model of policy change to contemporary sentencing reform to provide an analytical framework within which reform movements can be examined and understood.

Abstract

The model focuses attention on the characteristics of the policy question and parties involved in the reform movement as critical factors in understanding the outcome of the change process. A second question relates to the probable impact of recent reforms on criminal sentencing and the entire justice process in the future. A Delphi Projection using two samples of experts, combined with a review of published analyses of recent reforms, provides the basis for an estimation of the future of criminal sentencing. A case study methodology is used to examine sentencing reform in eight States, and an analysis of changes in sentencing procedures in Oregon and California is presented. The Agenda Building Model's postulates were supported in each of the States studied. The characteristics of the change process, a necessity for limiting the scope of change proposals, the need for vague wording of the goals of change, and the requirements of compromise to achieve broad support, all operate to limit the impact of reforms. The model itself and the results of the Delphi projections suggest that the sentencing reform process will continue into the future. Chapter notes, study instruments, and about 120 references are provided. (Author abstract modified)