This study examines the influence of social and legal contextual factors on the processing of individual felony cases in large urban jurisdictions for 1998. Results of hierarchical logistic regression analyses that control for the effects of individual case-level factors show that three jurisdictional characteristics—use of sentencing guidelines, level of crime, and racial composition—influence the decision to imprison. These findings suggest that the type of sentence one receives and the reason one receives it partially depend on where it is meted out. This research demonstrates the importance of accounting for case-level factors in studies of cross-jurisdictional differences in punitiveness.
Turk's theory of norm resistance explains how authority-subject relations can be structured in manners that have different probabilities of overt conflict (norm resistance). Building on previous research by Lanza-Kaduce and Greenleaf, this study uses data collected as part of an observational study of the police in Indianapolis, Indiana, and St. Petersburg, Florida, to examine Turk's theory as it relates to conflict in police-suspect encounters. It examines three hypotheses derived from the theory of norm resistance, using multivariate statistical techniques to control for several factors either posited or empirically shown in previous research to influence overt conflict. Two of the three hypotheses are supported. Consistent with prior research, organization and sophistication of police and suspects are significant predictors of overt conflict. However, the hypothesis that conflict will be less likely when officers' positional authority is reinforced by race, age, sex, and wealth deference norms is not supported.Austin Turk's (1969) theory of norm resistance describes how authority relations can be structured in manners that have different likelihoods of overt conflict (norm resistance) between authorities and subjects. Turk's theory assumes underlying conflict between authority figures and their subjects. At the same time, it contends that cultural differences between these parties do not by themselves cause overt (i.e., manifested by behavior) social conflict. Turk (1969:54) states that to conclude that greater cultural differences automatically result in a greater probability of normative-legal conflict ignores
Although many studies have used states' stock imprisonment rates to gauge the relative punitiveness of U.S. jurisdictions, there has been much less systematic research designed to explain the significant county-level differences in sentencing outcomes within the United States. This study focuses on the impact of new court commitments on prison use, using a 1998 national sample of court data from 172 U.S. counties to document and explain variations in use of prison as a sentencing option. Multivariate linear regression analyses show that each of the five considered legally relevant factors and two of the five extralegal variables—Southern region and political conservatism—influence prison use. Three other extralegal factors—racial composition, economic disadvantage, and urbanization—do not affect prison use according to our model. Implications of these findings for both research and policy are discussed.
This study used hierarchical logistic modeling to examine the impact of legal, extralegal, and contextual variables on the decision to sentence felons to prison in a sample of large urban counties in 1996. None of the four contextual (county-level) variables—the level of crime, unemployment rate, racial composition, and region—increased the likelihood of a prison sentence, but 10 case-level factors, both legal and extralegal, and several macro-micro interaction terms were influential. These results demonstrate the importance of considering smaller geographic units (i.e., counties instead of states) and controlling for case-level factors in research on interjurisdictional differences in prison use.
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