Criminology & Criminal Justice
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Item CAN SOCIAL PROTESTS CHANGE LOCAL SENTENCING PATTERNS? EVIDENCE FROM THE 2015 BALTIMORE UPRISING(2023) Li, Dixin; Johnson, Brian D; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Research examining the effects of violent protests has long produced mixed results and more recent studies are no more definitive. Very little work explicitly considers their potential impact on the criminal justice system, and particularly on the courts, the institution that primarily distributes punishment and exerts formal social control. At the same time, criminologists and sociologists agree that courts do not operate in a social vacuum but are embedded in layered contexts. Although some court research examines contextual effects, it has treated them as relatively inert over time, and little is known about how court decisions may deviate from their patterns in the face of sudden political turmoil. Bringing together varied lines of theories, this research discusses the effect of social protests on criminal courts, using data from the Maryland State Commission on Criminal Sentencing Policy (MSCCSP) to examine local sentencing pattern shifts in the aftermath of the 2015 death of Freddie Gray and the subsequent social unrest that follwed. This study analyzes (a) whether the overall punitiveness of courts changed after the event, (b) whether the change disparately impacted different racial and ethnic groups, and (c) whether these effects vary geographically across the state of Maryland.Item County Effects on White-Collar Sentencing in Maryland Circuit Courts(2015) Bernstein, Justin Pascal; Simpson, Sally S; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Research on local contexts has been a major development within sentencing literature in recent years. White-collar sentencing, however, is an area that has not received much attention from local contexts research. The current study addresses that gap, estimating geographical effects on sentencing outcomes for a group of white-collar offenders in Maryland’s circuit courts using data from the Maryland State Commission on Criminal Sentencing Policy. The results show, consistent with local contexts research focused on conventional offenders, that the jurisdiction sentencing a white-collar defendant affects outcomes after controlling for a variety of individual-level case characteristics. The county effects this study finds, however, are not entirely consistent with what the local contexts of sentencing literature would predict for general offender sentencing. These findings, though limited, suggest that somewhat different dynamics may apply in the white-collar sentencing context, highlighting the need for further research in this area.Item Sentencing in a New Era: Examining the Impact of Judicial Discretion and Contextual Dynamics in Federal Criminal Sentencing after Booker/Fanfan(2015) Betsinger, Sara Linn; Johnson, Brian; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)For nearly twenty years, federal judges were required to strictly adhere to the federal sentencing guidelines (`the Guidelines"), which calculated sentences based on the offender's current offense level and his or her prior offense history, and which tightly controlled which aggravating and mitigating factors could be considered. However, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively altered the course of federal sentencing with its decision in Booker/Fanfan in 2005, which made the Guidelines advisory; although judges are still required to consider the Guidelines and to provide reasons for departing from their recommendations, Booker has minimized the concern for appellate interference and, as such, has presumably opened the door for increased judicial discretion. The current dissertation examines the impact of the Supreme Court's decision and extends prior work by paying particular attention to its effect on drug and immigration offenses and by incorporating unique dynamic measures to examine contextual changes over time. Because Booker provides a natural experiment, a quasi-experimental pre-test post-test design is employed to examine the decision's impact, with separate models estimated for the full study period (2000-2008), the pre- and post-Booker periods, and each quarter in the study period. In addition, the impact of the decision is examined both through individual-level models, which focus on the role of offense and offender characteristics, and multilevel models, which more closely investigate how Booker's impact may be contextualized by district-level factors. The results provide very little evidence of a "Booker effect" during the years examined; instead, they largely suggest that judges continued to sentence according to pre-Booker sentencing patterns. When noticeable differences were found pre- to post-Booker, closer examination of quarterly trends often revealed that shifts occurred prior to Booker, during the PROTECT Act period. However, because there was initially a large amount of federal-level confusion regarding the interpretation of Booker's application - subsequent clarification was provided by the Supreme Court in Kimbrough and Gall - it is possible that the true effects of Booker became evident well after the study period ended. Future research should expand the types of contextual variables included, incorporate qualitative data, and more precisely estimate Booker's causal influence on sentencing outcomes.Item Sentencing Corporate Crime: Responses to Scandal and Sarbanes-Oxley(2014) Galvin, Miranda A.; Simpson, Sally S.; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis assesses the effects of the accounting scandals of the early 2000s and the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act (commonly known as Sarbanes-Oxley) on sentences for corporations in federal criminal court. I hypothesize that the time period in which the case was sentenced will exert both direct and interactive effects on the likelihood of harsh punishments and mediate the effects of legal and extralegal variables on the same. This research uses a probit regression model to explore the direct and interactive effects of extralegal characteristics across time with pooled cross-sectional data from the United States Sentencing Commission organizational data series. Companies sentenced during the scandal period were more likely to receive harsh fines, consistent with a collective framing argument. Evidence also suggests that certain offender and offense characteristics are doubly-penalized.Item Processing and Punishment: Examining the Relationship between Time to Disposition, Mode of Conviction, and Sentence Severity(2014) Stewart, Christina Danielle; Johnson, Brian D; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The literature on sentencing assumes a strong relationship between processing time and case outcomes, both directly and in connection with the mode of conviction. Yet, the role of time has largely been ignored in research on court actor decision making. The current study examines this important, although rarely empirically tested, dimension of the criminal justice process. By combining data from the Maryland State Commission on Criminal Sentencing Policy with information from court records, this study explores the effect of time to disposition on sentence severity and assess the impact that controlling for time to disposition has on mode of conviction effects. Findings support the importance of time to sentencing, demonstrating a significant, positive effect of time to disposition on sentence severity. Time to disposition, however, does not mediate the effects of mode of conviction, which raises important theoretical questions about the mechanisms driving trial penalties.Item Mechanisms of Juvenile Transfer: Variations in Incarceration and Sentence Length in Criminal Court(2010) Samuelson, Benta Katrine; Johnson, Brian D.; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The judge's ability to transfer a juvenile to adult court through judicial waiver has been in existence since the inception of the juvenile court in 1899. In response to increases in violent juvenile crime, state legislatures created and expanded juvenile transfer policies in the mid to late 1990's. Although many of these policies have been in effect for almost 15 years, there is little empirical work examining how type of transfer can affect sentencing outcomes in adult court. This study examines three of the most common juvenile transfer mechanisms (judicial waiver, statutory exclusion, and direct file) and their sentencing outcomes using a large, multi-jurisdictional sample. Results from this study indicate that juveniles transferred through direct file have the highest likelihood of incarceration while youths transferred through statutory exclusion face the harshest incarcerative sanctions. Findings regarding legal and extralegal characteristics are discussed as well as limitations and suggestions for future research.Item Does Process Matter in Military Sentencing? A Study of the Trial Penalty in Air Force Courts-Martial(2008-07-07) Breen, Patricia; Johnson, Brian D.; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Prior sentencing research has largely ignored the military justice system even though over two million people are subject to its jurisdiction. Studying the military justice system advances knowledge of the military population and offers an opportunity to explore criminal justice issues and theoretical perspectives in a different legal system that includes jury sentencing. The present study applies organizational efficiency, uncertainty avoidance, and court community perspectives to investigate whether military offenders who assert their Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial are penalized with harsher sentences than offenders who plead guilty. Using Air Force court-martial data from 2005 and 2006, the results of the study found no support for a trial penalty effect and also found that juries are less likely to impose severe types of punishment compared to judges. The study offers possible explanations for these findings and discusses implications for public policy, theory, and the direction for future research.Item Race, Sentencing, and the Pretrial Process(2006-08-29) Hart, Michelle Hart Elizabeth; Bushway, Shawn; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Previous research has suggested that racial disparity originates from judicial decisions at sentencing; however I argue that racial disparity may originate at the pretrial stage. First, research has consistently demonstrated a potential discriminatory link between race/ethnicity and incarceration. Second, other research has demonstrated that minorities are likely to be assigned a high bail, less likely to afford that bail, and more likely to be detained pretrial. Finally, recent research has also suggested that pretrial detention can lead directly to more guilty pleas and a higher likelihood of incarceration. I predict that accounting for pretrial outcome will decrease the impact of race on the probability of incarceration at the conviction stage. I argue that utilizing a sample of indicted individuals (opposed to convicted offenders) is appropriate approach in type of study. I find that the impact of race on sentencing outcome is reduced when pretrial outcomes are included in the model.