legal factors and to promote predictability, consis-
tency, transparency, and accountability in sentencing.
For example, in the United States, since the 1980s,
there have been both state and federal guidelines that
employ a grid structure. State guidelines vary in their
use of the axes of criminal history and offense seri-
ousness, as well as the sentence ranges proposed.
Some guidelines are advisory/optional (voluntary),
and others are legally mandated (presumptive); some
are based on past sentencing practices, while others
offer a new sentencing goal or philosophy. In the
English system, optional sentencing guidelines are
being produced for all criminal courts since 2004.
Although these guidelines are much less structured
than in the United States, they are informed by public
consultation and data on the effectiveness of sentences
in reducing re-offending, as well as the financial cost
of different sentences. However, commentators are
pessimistic about the extent to which objectivity in
sentencing can be achieved by the English guidelines.
Research evaluating guidelines in the American sys-
tem suggests that while successful in reducing extrale-
gal disparity in sentencing in some jurisdictions, the
guidelines have sharply increased such disparity in
other jurisdictions.Research Describing and
Explaining Sentencing Practice
Much of the past research has investigated sentencing
decisions in the American and English criminal justice
systems. Studies have been conducted by psycholo-
gists, sociologists, criminologists, and legal scholars
using methodologies such as experiments involving
sentencers being presented with simulated cases,
interview and questionnaire surveys of sentencers,
analyses of sentenced case records and sentencing
statistics, and analyses of sentencing policies.
Researchers have examined both sentencing decisions
generally as well as the choice of specific sentencing
options. They have documented the influence of legal
and extralegal factors on sentencing, variations in sen-
tencing practice across areas or jurisdictions, and dis-
parities in the sentences passed on subgroups of
defendants.
Sentencers are often required to give reasons for
their sentencing decisions. The reasons given in court
or in self-report studies typically do not concur with
the findings of research that is based on an analysis of
sentencing behavior.Evidence from studies of sentencing behavior sug-
gests that sentencing decisions are associated with ear-
lier decisions made in a case such as the bail-setting
decision and the defendant’s plea. In particular, defen-
dants who were denied bail or remanded in custody are
more likely to receive a custodial sentence than those
who are given bail, after controlling for some legally
relevant variables such as offense type. Furthermore,
sentencing discounts may be given to those defendants
who plead guilty. Some of the relations between the
sentencing decision and earlier decisions are supported
by policies such as the guilty plea discounts in the
English system and plea agreements in the American
federal system. However, the association between the
bail-setting decision and the sentencing decision are
not mandated by sentencing policy.
Studies have examined the extent to which sen-
tencers may be influenced by myriad individual-level
factors such as offender, victim, and case characteris-
tics as well as higher-level factors related to the sen-
tencer, court, and area or jurisdiction. With regard to
individual-level factors, there is evidence that in addi-
tion to legally proscribed factors, sentencers may use
extralegal factors such as the race or ethnicity and
gender of the defendant. In particular, Black defen-
dants have been reported to be treated more punitively
than White defendants, and females have been shown
to be treated more leniently than their male counter-
parts, even after controlling for the defendant’s
offense and criminal history. However, there may be
other legally relevant case variables that covary with
these extralegal factors that also need to be controlled,
and the impact of extralegal factors on sentencing may
also be partly accounted for by the impact of these
factors at earlier stages of the criminal justice process
such as at the bail-setting stage.
With regard to higher-level factors, criminological
research in America shows that the decision to incarcer-
ate as well as the length of incarceration can be predicted
by sentencer characteristics, such as age, and court and
area factors, such as court size, availability of custodial
spaces, and proportion of ethnic population. For
instance, minority judges have been found to be more
lenient than their White counterparts. Sentences have
been found to be more severe in small courts than in
large courts. The availability of custodial spaces has been
found to increase the likelihood of incarceration. In some
areas, it has been found that as the proportion of the pop-
ulation belonging to an ethnic minority increases, so
does the length of incarceration. Criminological researchSentencing Decisions——— 709S-Cutler (Encyc)-45463.qxd 11/18/2007 12:44 PM Page 709