Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2758
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Item Federal Probation Officers and Sentencing Disparity: Examining the Role of Extralegal Factors in Guidelines Calculations(2024) Mullaly, Cara; Johnson, Brian; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Over the years, the relationship between extralegal factors and federal sentencing disparity has attracted a significant amount of research attention. Much of this work, however, has focused on judicial and prosecutorial decision-making, largely ignoring other influential actors. One such actor is the federal probation officer. Using data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission, this study explores the relationship between extralegal factors and federal probation officer’s guidelines calculations. This study uses a theoretical framework that combines focal concerns and causal attributions to argue that federal probation officers attribute the causes of criminal activity differently across demographic groups, shaping their perception of the defendant’s blameworthiness and dangerousness and ultimately resulting in differing guidelines calculations. Findings showed mixed support for the hypotheses in this study. After discussing the results and limitations of the current study, I provide direction for future study of federal probation officers and their influence on federal sentencing outcomes.Item A Re-Analysis of the Role of Race in the Federal Death Penalty System(2009) Chapman, Brett; Paternoster, Raymond; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The death penalty, as the ultimate sanction, has always served as a source of great debate and remains one of the most controversial punishments meted out by the criminal justice system. Due to concerns of its administration and application, a moratorium on the death penalty was declared by the U.S. Supreme Court in Furman v. Georgia in 1972, and states were mandated by the Court to overhaul their respective death sentencing statutes in a manner that would conform to Court-approved standards under the U.S. Constitution. After the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, it was believed by many that the deficiencies cited in sentencing outcomes in capital cases four years earlier in Furman would either be eliminated or at least brought within constitutionally acceptable levels. Although there has been a wealth of empirical studies over the years at the state level, very few analyses have focused on how the death penalty is administered in the Federal system. In 2002, a study was funded to examine the potential influence of race in decisions by U.S. Attorney's Offices to seek or not seek the death penalty for defendants charged with death-eligible offenses under Federal law. Three independent research teams investigated whether charging outcomes could be explained by relevant legal factors such as the heinousness of the offense. However, unlike the wealth of death penalty research which has conducted such analyses using more traditional multivariate models to isolate the effect of race on charging and sentencing outcomes, the three research teams conducted alternate analyses to compare outcomes in white victim versus non-white victim cases. The purpose of the current study will be to examine the role of race on charging decisions made in the federal death penalty system. The final results suggest that capital cases involving white victims may have a higher risk of being charged with the death penalty than cases involving non-white victims.