This study examines effects of court and community contextual factors on sentencing outcomes for individuals convicted of sexual crimes using indicators from two perspectives—focal concerns and populist punitiveness. Sourced from the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing, the sample includes 9,431 persons convicted of sexual crimes and a precision-matched sample of persons convicted of non-sexual violent crimes for comparison. Based on multilevel hurdle regression models for both incarceration and sentence length decisions, results indicate that individuals convicted of sexual crimes face enhanced sentence severity in judicial districts with smaller courts, increased jail capacity, stronger political competition, and higher religious homogeneity. The results also suggest statistically significant differences between effects for persons convicted of sexual crimes and a matched sample of persons convicted of violent crimes. Overall, results suggest that specific contextual factors have a distinguishable impact on sentencing of individuals convicted of sexual crimes.

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The current work explores the direct and interaction effects of age, race, ethnicity, and gender disparity on sentence lengths, considering differences between jail and prison sanctions. The liberation hypothesis suggests that increased judicial discretion in cases involving less serious crimes results in greater extralegal disparity; however, this prediction may not be consistent with how sentencing guidelines structure discretion. Drawing on 7 years of data (2004-2010) from the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing, we employ quantile regression models to account for the structure of sentencing guidelines, while examining variation in jail and prison sentence length outcomes. Results indicate that punishment severity varies across age, race, ethnicity, and gender subgroups, but not in ways that offer support for the liberation hypothesis or fit with opportunities to exercise discretion under sentencing guidelines. Substantive, methodological, and policy implications are discussed.

The focal concerns perspective suggests that criminal history and the nature of the offense interact to influence judicial assessments of community threat, yet this question has not been subject to systematic empirical examination. Drawing on 4 years of data (2007-2010) from the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing ( N = 75,676), we utilize linear quantile mixed models (LQMM) to examine the impact of prior record on the conditional distribution of sentence lengths across violent, property, drug, and sex offenders, controlling for the effects of important individual and judicial district-level covariates. The results indicate that prior record penalties differ both between and within conviction offense types across the conditional sentence length distribution. Substantive, theoretical, and methodological implications are discussed.

Scholars recently called for increased analysis of opportunity structures that produce white‐collar crimes in legitimate business systems. In the current research, we use mental models, a tool from cognitive psychology, to describe opportunity structures for white‐collar crime in the European Emissions Trading System, the largest carbon market in the world. Specifically, we use routine activities theory to describe the convergence of motivated offenders and suitable targets in the absence of capable guardians in different parts of the system. Implications for utilizing routine activities theory to understand and address crime in carbon markets are discussed.