The Effect of State Sentencing Policies on Incarceration Rates

Sorensen, Jon R.; Stemen, Don

doi:10.1177/001112870204800305

Cited by 49 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Researchers refer to this linkage as the “racial threat hypothesis,” which states that majority populations suffer in general from a fear of minority populations. While the level of this fear is hypothesized to be variable, the result is that where minority populations are larger, whites' fears of minorities crystallize around punitive attitudes and sentencing practices (Myers & Talarico 1986; Ulmer & Johnson 2004; Kramer & Ulmer 2002; Sorenson & Stemen 2004). There is empirical evidence to support this prediction (Jacob & Helms 1996; Beckett & Western 2001; Jackson 1989).…”

Section: Theoretical Perspectives On the Provision Of Indigent Defensementioning

confidence: 99%

State Politics and the Right to Counsel: A Comparative Analysis

Davies

Worden

2009

Law Soc Rev

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One of the most significant recent developments in the study of crime and justice is the emergence of theoretical explanations for the dramatic changes in criminal justice policy over the past few decades. These theoretical accounts address not only highly visible developments, such as the meteoric rise in incarceration rates, but also less-conspicuous shifts in due process and civil liberties, and they do so by attributing more-repressive policies to the emergence of a political culture that has substantially redefined crime and justice. This article focuses on an important due process issue, the legal representation of indigent defendants in criminal courts. We describe the state of indigent defense policy, particularly structure and funding, across the states in 2002, and analyze variation on two dimensions where states may exercise discretion: the extent to which states assume responsibility for funding services (rather than relying on local governments), and the generosity with which these programs are funded overall. We test hypotheses that link funding for services with the ideology of state political leadership, public values about tolerance and race relations, and states' public welfare policy climates. We find little support for the prediction that a welfare climate shapes more progressive indigent defense policies. However, the results suggest that the racial threat hypothesis helps account for spending on indigent defense, and that Republican control of the statehouse results in the perpetuation of local responsibility for program funding. Normative literature on indigent defense suggests that the patterns we observe may have important consequences for the quality of indigent defense services across states. Further, the findings reported here suggest that the politics of the punitive turn, as it has played out across the states, may be responsible not only for shifts in crime control policy, but for due process policy as well.Overt he past three decades, U.S. criminal justice policy has become increasingly punitive. Developments in law enforcement,

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Section: Theoretical Perspectives On the Provision Of Indigent Defensementioning

confidence: 99%

State Politics and the Right to Counsel: A Comparative Analysis

Davies

Worden

2009

Law Soc Rev

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“…Furthermore, they found no relationship between reforms and increased time served. In a study authored by Sorensen and Stemen (2002) that assessed reforms in a similar way also found that changes in sentencing policies largely did not impact imprisonment or admissions. Their study indicates that only presumptive sentencing guidelines were consistently related to either admissions or imprisonment.…”

Section: Wisconsinmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Generally, the results of the studies that assessed states-level changes in imprisonment over time (e.g., Harmon, 2013;Marvell, 1995;Nicholson-Crotty, 2004;Sorensen & Stemen, 2002;Spelman, 2009;Stemen et al, 2006;Zhang et al, 2009) have suggested that the elimination of discretionary parole release (e.g., determinate sentencing) and the adoption of truth in sentencing were more likely to be associated with changes in imprisonment, though some studies indicated these reforms increased imprisonment while others suggested they decreased it. For example, Stemen and Rengifo (2010) found that back-end sentencing reforms that constrain release decisions are more impactful than front-end reforms that constrain sentencing discretion.…”

Section: Wisconsinmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opening the Door for More: Assessing the Impact of Sentencing Reforms on Commitments to Prison Over Time

Harmon

2015

Am J Crim Just

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Since the early 1970s, U.S. states have adopted a series of sentencing reforms that have substantially altered sentencing and release policies by limiting discretion of judges, parole boards, and/or prison administrators. The current study assesses shifts in year-to-year changes in new commitments and parolees returned to prison within all 50 states from the years 1972 to 2008. The study tests the theory that sentencing reforms resulted in increased commitments to prison due to changes in the structures of sentencing and not due to increased crime. Data was analyzed using panel regression with robust standard errors, fixed effects, and conditional change scores. By treating six main sentencing reforms as dynamically interacting, the results suggest that certain combinations of sentencing reforms significantly increase new commitments while the number of parolees returned to prison was not meaningfully affected. The analysis further indicates that the combinations that the reforms appear in at the statelevel influence the magnitude of the impacts of reforms.

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“…However obvious this may seem, the empirical research to support this assumption is somewhat mixed. Several studies looking at differences either between countries or between jurisdictions within a country have found crime rates to be an important determinant of imprisonment rates (Carroll and Cornell ; Lynch ; McGarrell ; Michalowski and Pearson ; Sorensen and Stemen ), while others have found a weak or inconsistent association (e.g., Bowker ; Sutton ; Young and Brown ). In the only Canadian study published on this topic, Sprott and Doob () found that the relationship between crime rates and imprisonment rates across the provinces did not reach statistical significance in most of their models.…”

Section: Theory and Research On The Variation In Imprisonmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Those who explore the association between politics and criminal sanctioning have often pointed to the important role that political ideology may play in producing different criminal justice policies and practices and how such policies can lead to substantial shifts in the use of punishment. Indeed, studies looking at between‐state variation in the use of prisons across the United States have shown that ideological differences are one of the most important explanatory variables (Greenburg and West ; Jacobs and Carmichael ; Smith ; Sorensen and Stemen ). No study to date has tested the association between politics and imprisonment within Canadian provinces.…”

Section: Theory and Research On The Variation In Imprisonmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Use of Incarceration in Canada: A Test of Political and Social Threat Explanations on the Variation in Prison Admissions across Canadian Provinces, 2001–2010

Neil

Carmichael

2015

Sociological Inquiry

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Recent scholarship has indicated that political and ethnic threat theories-which maintain that the use of prison is not only determined by the extent of crime in society but also by various features related to power, ideology, and access to resources-provide powerful accounts as to why the use of punishment varies within and between societies. However, no study to date has tested these theories within Canada, a country in which such theories are quite plausible. This study begins to fill this void by assessing these theoretical claims using a pooled time series analysis of the variation in imprisonment rates across Canadian provinces from the years 2001 to 2010. After accounting for several measures including charge rates, the results show that Canadian incarceration rates are largely driven by ethnic threat. The size of the Aboriginal and visible minority populations across each province are the most significant determinants of the variation in punishment. Furthermore, we find a nonlinear relationship consistent with a political version of the threat hypothesis. Results, however, do not support political accounts which stress the power of right-wing parties or a conservative public.

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The Effect of State Sentencing Policies on Incarceration Rates

Cited by 49 publications

References 44 publications

State Politics and the Right to Counsel: A Comparative Analysis

State Politics and the Right to Counsel: A Comparative Analysis

Opening the Door for More: Assessing the Impact of Sentencing Reforms on Commitments to Prison Over Time

The Use of Incarceration in Canada: A Test of Political and Social Threat Explanations on the Variation in Prison Admissions across Canadian Provinces, 2001–2010

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