Retributive Criminal Justice: An Empirical Study of Prosecutorial Charge Reduction and Judicial Sentencing Decisions

• NCJ Number: 107781
• Author(s): J J Sloan
• Date Published: 1987
• Length: 185 pages
• Grant Number(s): 86-IJ-CX-0020
• Sponsoring Agency: National Institute of Justice (NIJ); US Dept of Justice NIJ Pub
• Sale Source: UMI Dissertation Services
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Purdue University - doctoral thesis

Annotation

A normative framework of retributively based criminal justice and a Weberian framework concerning the operation of formal-rational legal systems are used to analyze prosecutorial decisions and sentencing related to a sample of 795 felony cases prosecuted in 1983 in a large midwestern city.

Abstract

The research examined prosecutor decisions to reduce criminal charges in exchange for guilty pleas to determine whether felony case adjudication departed significantly from the Weberian framework and whether departures from the framework led to injustice. The use of both formal and informal rules to guide prosecutorial discretion was also explored, as was the severity of punishments set by judges. Punishment was considered in terms of a qualitative dimension, the type of sanction, and a quantitative dimension, the sentence length. The severity was hypothesized as being partly a function of the visibility and frequency of criminal offenses. Decisions by prosecutors and judges were found to be fair according to the conceptual model of justice used in the study. Tables, notes, and 168 references. (Author abstract modified)