Objectives: To test the liberation hypothesis in a judicial context unconstrained by sentencing guidelines.Methods: We examined cross-sectional sentencing data (n = 17,671) using a hurdle count model, which combines a binary (logistic regression) model to predict zero counts and a zero-truncated negative binomial model to predict positive counts. We also conducted a series of Monte Carlo simulations to demonstrate that the hurdle count model provides unbiased estimates of our sentencing data and outperforms alternative approaches.Results: For the liberation hypothesis, results of the interaction terms for race x offense severity and race x criminal history varied by decision type. For the in/out decision, criminal history moderated the effects of race: among offenders with less extensive criminal histories blacks were more likely to be incarcerated; among offenders with higher criminal histories this race effect disappeared. The race x offense severity interaction was not significant for the in/out decision. For the sentence length decision, offense severity moderated the effects of race: among offenders convicted of less serious crimes blacks received longer sentences than whites; among offenders convicted of crimes falling in the most serious offense categories the race effect became nonsignificant for Felony D offenses and transitioned to a relative reduction for blacks for the most serious Felony A, B, and C categories. The race x criminal history interaction was not significant for the length decision.Conclusions: There is some support for the liberation hypothesis in this test from a nonguidelines jurisdiction. The findings suggest, however, that the decision to incarcerate and the sentence length decision may employ different processes in which the interactions between race and seriousness measures vary.

The consequences of a person's prior crimes remain continue after the debt to society ispaid and the sentence is discharged. While the practice of using prior convictions to enhance the severity of sentence imposed is universal, prior record enhancements (PREs) play a particularly important role in US sentencing, and especially in guidelines jurisdictions. In grid-based guidelines, criminal history constitutes one of the two dimensions of the grid. PREs have only recently received critical scrutiny by scholars. The enhancements are hard to justify on retributive orpreventive grounds Retributivist theories generally reject the use of robust, cumulative record-based enhancements. Research into recidivism suggests that the preventive benefits of prior record enhancements have been overstated. The public support the consideration of prior convictions at sentencing, but there is convincingevidence that people are less punitive in their views than are many US guideline schemes. PREs have many adverse effects. They exacerbate racial disparities in prison admissions and populations, result in significant additional prison costs, undermine offense-based proportionality, and disrupt prison resource prioritization. The time is ripe for significant policy reform. The consequences of a person's past crimes remain long after the debt to society has been paid and the sentence discharged. Prior convictions affect one's life for decades by impairing job prospects, limiting eligibility for social programs and benefits, and imposing social stigma. Individuals pay for their crimes once and then pay over and over again. Nowhere is the impact of prior convictions more direct or more palpable than at

Courts as communities theory emphasizes the sentencing differences that can arise between localities within a single state. The results of published studies have highlighted how local differences emerge based on informal sociological and political processes defined by the communities perspective. The findings from recent quantitative studies from South Carolina have revealed notably less county variation in sentencing than has been observed elsewhere. I use qualitative interviews with 13 South Carolina trial judges to investigate sentencing processes and to shed light on these findings. The interviews explore the state's legal structure and culture, including the practice of circuit rotation in which judges travel among counties holding court. The results suggest rotation serves as a centripetal force of sentencing culture, homogenizing what might otherwise be a more varied collection of county‐specific norms. Rotation leads to increased uniformity through judge shopping and the cross‐pollination of ideas and norms. Defendants can strategically judge shop and plead in front of a lenient judge—a process that gives rise to the term “plea judge,” which is a label for the most lenient judges who sentence a large number of defendants. Rotation also increases the interactions among judges and prosecutors, expanding networks and grapevines, and leading to cross‐pollination and the sharing of ideas.

Parole officers are responsible for supervising offenders conditionally released from prisons into communities. This structural arrangement creates a power relationship, with officers' views providing the foundation for various bases of power and possibly influencing their exercise of discretionary power. This study is an examination of parole officers' perceptions of their bases of power and whether those perceptions influenced officers' use of their power to revoke offenders' parole. Findings revealed that officers identified legitimate and reward power as the primary means by which they gain compliance; however, only legitimate power and expert power were linked to officers' use of power.

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Despite sentencing reforms over the last few decades, many states failed to introduce guidelines, including South Carolina. The present article uses data collected from the now disbanded South Carolina Sentencing Commission (1982Commission ( to 2003 in order to assess the influence of gender, age, race, and type of crime. We found that females were consistently sentenced more leniently than were similarly situated males. Interactions between gender and the other variables, however, failed to gain significance with the exception of gender and offense type for the sentence length decision. Interestingly, we found a significant interaction between gender and offense severity level for both sentencing outcomes and criminal history for the incarceration decision. We discuss the implications of these findings in the event that South Carolina would have adopted sentencing guidelines.

Prior criminal record is routinely cited as one of the primary determinants of sentencing, and the common view is that prior record was a leading factor in non-guidelines jurisdictions going back decades. Yet, recent findings from a non-guidelines state failed to conform to this account. This study uses interviews with judges from a non-guidelines state to understand the role of prior record in sentencing in an unstructured sentencing state. This study also reexamines some of the early sentencing guidelines formation literature and finds some indications that pre-guidelines, prior record was not universally an instrumental predictor of sentence length.

This chapter shows how sentencing data can be used to quantify the substantial fiscal impacts of high-magnitude criminal history enhancements, overall and with respect to the problematic aspects of those enhancements identified and discussed in previous chapters. It uses data from Minnesota and several other states as examples because of the excellent sentencing data available for those states. The chapter first examines the total fiscal impact (added bed needs and costs) that results from the sentence-enhancing effects of criminal history on prison commitment and prison duration decisions. It then quantifies the fiscal impacts of the identified problematic aspects of prior record enhancements: disproportionately severe prison durations imposed on high history offenders, imprisonment of nonviolent offenders recommended for prison solely because of their elevated criminal history scores, imprisonment of aging offenders who are recommended for prison due to their high history scores, and racially disparate sentences that result from criminal history enhancements.