Handbook on Punishment Decisions Locations of Disparity The ASC Division on Corrections & Sentencing Handbook Series

Handbook on Punishment Decisions: Locations of Disparity provides a comprehensive assessment of the current knowledge on sites of disparity in punishment decision-making. This collection of essays and reports of original research defines disparity broadly to include the intersection of race/ethnicity, gender, age, citizenship/immigration status, and socioeconomic status, and it examines dimensions such as how pretrial or guilty plea processes shape exposure to punishment, how different types of sentencing decisions and/or policy structures (sentencing guidelines, mandatory minimums, risk assessment tools) might shape and condition disparity, and how post-sentencing decisions involving probation and parole contribute to inequalities. The sixteen contributions pull together what we know and what we don?t about punishment decision-making and plow new ground for further advances in the field.

The ASC Division on Corrections & Sentencing Handbook Series publishes volumes on topics ranging from violence risk assessment to specialty courts for drug users, veterans, or people with mental illness. Each thematic volume focuses on a single topical issue that intersects with corrections and sentencing research.

Introduction (p. 1)
Jeffery T. Ulmer and Mindy S. Bradley

Part I: Policy Choices and Mass Punishment

Chapter 1: What We Know, Do Not Know, and Need to Know About Sentencing and Mass Incarceration in the U.S. and What "Sentencing" Research Could Teach Us (p. 11)
Rodney L. Engen

Chapter 2: Mass Probation and Inequality: Race, Class, and Gender Disparities in Supervision and Revocation (p. 43)
Michelle S. Phelps

Chapter 3: Sowing the Seeds of Future Justice System Disparities:" School Punishment and the School to Prison Pipeline (p. 67)
Aaron Kupchik and Akilah Alleyne

Part II: Disparities in Pre-Conviction Processes

Chapter 4: Cumulative Disadvantage and the Geography of Racial Inequality in Criminal Punishment (p. 83)
Marisa Omori and Rachel Lautenschlager

Chapter 5: Escape From Punishment: Exploring the Sealing of a Criminal Record and Potential Disparities in Its Application (p. 109)
Megan C. Kurlychek and Heather M. Washington

Chapter 6: Discretion in the Absence of Guidelines: Charge Bargaining and Sentencing for Felony Defendants in New York (p. 133)
Shi Yan, Shawn D. Bushway, and Allison D. Redlich

Chapter 7: Perspectives Informing Defense Attorney Effects on Criminal Case Outcomes (p. 153)
John Wooldredge, James Frank, and Natalie Goulette

Part III: Disparities in Punishment Outcomes

Chapter 8: Focal Concerns Theory as Conceptual Tool for Studying Intersectionality in Sentencing Disparities: Focus on Gender and Race Along with Age (p. 189)
Darrell Steffensmeier and Noah Painter-Davis

Chapter 9: Racial and Ethnic Disparities among Female Offenders Adjudicated in Federal Courts: Explicating the Patterns of Disparities Using a Path Model (p. 211)
Cassia C. Spohn, Pauline K. Brennan, and Byungbae Kim

Chapter 10: Studying Ethnic Disparities in Sentencing: The Importance of Refining Ethnic Minority Measures (p. 239)
Hilde Wermink, Sigrid van Wingerden, Johan van Wilsem, and Paul Nieuwbeerta

Chapter 11: The Relationship between the Gender of the Probation Officer and Judicial Sentencing: Implications for Black Male Offenders (p. 265)
Michael J. Leiber, Jennifer H. Peck, Melanie Valentin Rosa, and Tayler Shreve

Chapter 12: Race, Facial Appearance, and the Focal Concerns of Sentencing (p. 291)
Brian D. Johnson and Rebecca Richardson

Chapter 13: Towards the Development of a Standardized Focal Concerns Theory of Sentencing (p. 311)
Sean Maddan and Richard D. Hartley

Part IV: Risk: Race, Age, and Social Class

Chapter 14: Assessment of Offender Risk at Sentencing: A Potential for Disparity? (p. 339)
Julia A. Laskorunsky

Chapter 15: Assessment Disparities After Federal Incarceration in Canada (p. 363)
Rose Ricciardelli, Michael Adorjan, and James Lant

Chapter 16: "Objects of Concern" or "Risky Young Offenders"? Assessment and Intervention With Children in the Public Care and Youth Justice Systems of England and Wales (p. 385)
Jonathan Evans

Index

Jeffery T. Ulmer is Professor of Sociology and Criminology and Associate Department Head of the Department of Sociology and Criminology at Pennsylvania State University. He received his Ph.D. and M.A. in Sociology from Pennsylvania State University. His interests include courts and criminal sentencing, racial inequalities in criminal punishment, structural disadvantage and violence, religion and crime, symbolic interactionism, organizations, and the integration of qualitative and quantitative methods. He is the author or co-author of several books and over 65 articles and book chapters. He received the Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Society of Criminology (ASC) Division on Corrections and Sentencing in 2012, and in 2006 (with Darrell Steffensmeier) won ASC’s Michael Hindelang Award for Outstanding Book for Confessions of a Dying Thief: Understanding Criminal Careers and Illegal Enterprise.

Mindy S. Bradley is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Arkansas. Her areas of research include: courts and sentencing, corrections, intersections of mental/behavioral health and justice systems, and deviance. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology and M.A. in Crime, Law, and Justice from Pennsylvania State University, and her B.S. in Criminal Justice from the University of West Georgia. She was a National Institute of Mental Health Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is the author of Naked Lives: Inside the Worlds of Exotic Dance (SUNY Press) and co-editor (with Brent Teasdale) of Preventing Crime and Violence (Springer), the second volume of the Advances in Prevention Science series.