A Multilevel Analysis of Community Effects on Criminal Sentencing

Abstract

This research examines the influence of several important community characteristics on the sentencing of convicted felony defendants, net of other predictors associated with sentencing decisions. Using an appropriate multilevel technique, I find that several community characteristics affect the likelihood that defendants are sentenced to prison versus jail. However, none of the community characteristics influence the odds of prison versus non-custodial sanctions or jail versus non-custodial sanctions for these defendants. This underscores the importance of using sentencing measures beyond the basic "in/out" dichotomy. Even more importantly, the results suggest that there remains a statistically significant and substantial amount of sentencing variation across counties after controlling for relevant individual-and community-level factors. The implications of these findings for research, theory, and policy-making are discussed.

Community influence on prosecutorial dismissals: A multilevel analysis of case- and county-level factors

“…Myers and Talarico (1987) found evidence that the likelihood of incarceration increased in counties with higher unemployment rates and that African Americans were more likely than Whites to receive harsher punishments in these communities. Fearn (2005) reported that jurisdictions characterized by higher income inequality between African Americans and Whites treated offenders more punitively.…”

“…Though differential treatment has since become less problematic, the general consensus of this research indicates that unwarranted disparities in sentencing outcomes persist, despite the use of determinate sentences and various sentencing guidelines (see Spohn, 2000;Zatz, 2000 for recent reviews). 1 Consequently, researchers continue to explore the complex causes of sentencing disparities, with more advanced efforts focusing on the simultaneous influence of case-level factors and community-level contextual factors (e.g., racial composition of the community, unemployment, crime rates) (e.g., Britt, 2000;Fearn, 2005;Kautt, 2002;Ulmer & Johnson, 2004). Generally, these studies had found that sentencing outcomes (and the magnitude of factors predicting sentencing outcomes) vary by jurisdiction, thus, highlighting the importance of social context as an additional factor in understanding how and why sentencing disparities may occur.…”

Driving racial profiling research forward: Learning lessons from sentencing research

“…For example, sentencing research employed this technique to ensure that factors associated with the defendant (i.e., race/ethnicity, gender, and age) were properly specified while considering courtroom factors (i.e., case load pressure, prosecutorial priorities, and number of judges) (Britt, 2000;Johnson, 2006) or jurisdictional characteristics (i.e., political contexts, court organizational arrangements, sentencing structures, work-group case-processing strategies) (Crow & Gertz, 2008;Fearn, 2005;Ulmer & Johnson, 2004). This technique has also been used to nest individual defendant cases within higher-level variables, such as the characteristics of judges who preside in the district (Anderson & Spohn, 2009;Johnson, 2006).…”

Status, emotional displays, and the relationally-based evaluation of criminals and their behavior

“…Empirical research has confirmed that these social characteristics do indeed affect evaluations of offender dangerousness and offense severity (Albonetti 1991(Albonetti , 1997Bridges and Crutchfield 1988;Bridges and Steen 1998;Fearn 2005;Kautt 2009b;Kramer and Steffensmeier 1993;Moore and Miethe 1986;Steffensmeier and Demuth 2000;Steffensmeier, Ulmer and Kramer 1998;Zatz 1984). But social structure, particularly in small groups, is not determined solely by an individual's own characteristics but rather those characteristics relative to the characteristics of others (Berger and Webster 2006).…”