This aricle explores the relationship between sentencing policies and the state incarceration rate, prison admission rate, and average sentence length in the late 1990s. Presumptive sentencing guidelines represent the only policy consistently related to incarceration and admission rates, whereas three strikes laws may increase the rate of admission to prison among those arrested for drug offenses. Determinate sentencing, mandatory sentencing, and truth-in-sentencing laws have no effect on rates of incarceration or admission. Crime rates, the percentage of the population that is Black, and citizen ideology have the greatest influence on the rates of incarceration and admission across states. The apparently limited effects of sentencing policies on incarceration or admission rates should give pause to state policy makers seeking to quickly alter prison populations through the adoption of such policies without considering other factors that independently influence prison populations in their states.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Alschuler, A. W.
(1991). The failure of sentencing guidelines: A plea for less aggregation. University of Chicago Law Review, 58, 901-944.
2.
Beck, A. J.
, & Karberg, J. C. (2001). Prison and jail inmates at midyear 2000. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
3.
Beck, A. J.
, & Mumola, C. J. (1999). Prisoners in 1998. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
4.
Berry, W. D.
, Ringquist, E. J., Fording, R. C., & Hanson, R. L. (1998). Measuring citizen and government ideology in the American states, 1960-93. American Journal of Political Science, 41, 327-348.
5.
Black, D.
(1976). The behavior of the law. New York: Academic Press.
6.
Blumstein, A.
(1982). On the racial disproportionality of United States’ prison populations. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 73, 1259-1281.
7.
Blumstein, A.
(1988). Prison populations: A system out of control? In M. Tonry & N. Morris (Eds.), Crime and justice: A review of research (Vol. 10, pp. 231-266). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
8.
Blumstein, A.
, & Beck, A. J. (1999). Population growth in U.S. prisons, 1980-1996. In M. Tonry & J. Petersilia (Eds.), Crime and justice: A review of research (Vol. 26, pp. 17-61). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
9.
Blumstein, A.
, & Cohen, J. (1973). A theory of the stability of punishment. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 64, 198-207.
10.
Boggess, S.
, Bound, J. (1997). Did criminal activity increase during the 1980s? Comparisons across data sources. Social Science Quarterly, 78, 725-739.
11.
Bowers, D. A.
, & Waltman, J. L. (1993). Do more conservative states impose harsher felony sentences? An exploratory analysis of 32 states. Criminal Justice Review, 18, 61-70.
12.
Bureau of Justice Assistance
. (1998). 1996 national survey of state sentencing structures. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
13.
Carroll, L.
, & Cornell, C. P. (1985). Racial composition, sentencing, reforms, and rates of incarceration, 1970-1980. Justice Quarterly, 2, 473-490.
14.
Casper, J. D.
(1984). Determinate sentencing and prison crowding in Illinois. Illinois Law Review, 28, 381-420.
15.
Chaiken, J. M.
(2000). Crunching the numbers: Crime and incarceration at the end of the millennium. National Institute of Justice Journal, 242, 10-17.
16.
Chiricos, T. G.
, & DeLone, M. A. (1992). Labor surplus and punishment: A review and assessment of theory and evidence. Social Problems, 39, 421-446.
17.
Ditton, P. M.
, & Wilson, D. J. (1999). Truth in sentencing in state prisons. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
18.
Eisenstein, J.
, Flemming, R. B., & Nardulli, P. F. (1988). The contours of justice: Communities and their courts. Boston: Little, Brown.
19.
Frase, R. S.
(1995). State sentencing guidelines: Still going strong. Judicature, 78, 173-179.
20.
Greenfeld, L. A.
, Beck, A., & Gilliard, D. (1996). Prisons: Population trends and key issues for management. Criminal Justice Review, 21, 4-20.
21.
Grimes, P. W.
, & Rogers, K. E. (1999). Truth-in-sentencing, law enforcement, and inmate population growth. Journal of Socio-Economics, 28, 745-757.
22.
Griset, P. L.
(1999). Criminal sentencing in Florida: Determinate sentencing’s hollow shell. Crime and Delinquency, 45, 316-333.
23.
Holten, G.
, & Handberg, R. (1990). Florida’s sentencing guidelines surviving but just barely. Judicature, 73, 259-267.
24.
Jones, M. A.
, & Austin, J. (1995). NCCD 1995 national prison population forecast: The cost of truth-in-sentencing laws. San Francisco: National Council on Crime and Delinquency.
25.
Joyce, N. M.
(1992). A view of the future: The effect of policy on prison population growth. Crime and Delinquency, 38, 357-369.
26.
Land, K. C.
, McCall, P. L., & Cohen, L. E. (1990). Structural covariates of homicide rates: Are there any invariances across time and social space?American Journal of Sociology, 95, 922-963.
27.
Langan, P.
(1985). Racism on trial: New evidence to explain the racial composition of prisons in the United States. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 76, 666-683.
28.
Langan, P.
(1991). America’s soaring prison population. Science, 251, 1568-1573.
29.
Liska, A. E.
, Markowitz, F. E., Whaley, R. B., & Bellair, P. (1999). Modeling the relationship between the criminal justice and mental health systems. American Journal of Sociology, 104, 1744-1775.
30.
Maguire, K.
, & Pastore, A. L. (1998). Sourcebook of criminal justice statistics 1997. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
31.
Marvell, T. B.
(1995). Sentencing guidelines and prison population growth. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 85, 101-115.
32.
Marvell, T. B.
, & Moody, C. E. (1996). Determinate sentencing and abolishing parole: The long-term impacts on prisons and crime. Criminology, 34, 107-128.
33.
Marvell, T. B.
, & Moody, C. E. (1997). Age-structure trends and prison populations. Journal of Criminal Justice, 25, 115-124.
34.
Mauer, M.
(2001). The causes and consequences of prison growth in the United States. Punishment and Society, 3, 9-20.
35.
McGarrell, E. F.
, & Duffee, D. E. (1995). The adoption of pre-release centers in the states. Criminal Justice Review, 20, 1-20.
36.
Rose, D. R.
, & Clear, T. R. (1998). Incarceration, social control, and crime: Implications for Social Disorganization Theory. Criminology, 36, 441-479.
37.
Savelsberg, J.
(1992). Law that does not fit society: Sentencing guidelines as neoclassical reaction to the dilemmas of substantivized law. American Journal of Sociology, 97, 1346-1381.
38.
Schultz, D.
(2000). No joy in Mudville tonight: The impact of “three strike” laws on state and federal corrections policy, resources, and crime control. Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy, 9, 557-583.
39.
Sharkansky, I.
(1969). The utility of Elazar’s political culture: A research note. Polity, 2, 66-83.
40.
Sorensen, J. R.
, Marquart, J. W., & Brock, D. E. (1993). Factors related to the killing of felons by police officers: A test of the community violence and conflict hypotheses. Justice Quarterly, 10, 417-440.
41.
Sutton, J. R.
(1985). The juvenile court and social welfare: Dynamics of progressive reform. Law and Society Review, 19, 107-145.
42.
Taggart, W. A.
, & Winn, R. G. (1993). Imprisonment in the American states. Social Science Quarterly, 74, 736-749.
43.
Tonry, M. H.
(1988). Structuring sentencing. In M. Tonry & N. Morris (Eds.), Crime and justice: A review of research (Vol. 10, pp. 267-337). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
44.
Tonry, M. H.
(1991). The politics and processes of sentencing commissions. Crime and Delinquency, 37, 307-329.
45.
Turner, S.
, Greenwood, P., Chen, E., & Fain, T. (1999). The impact of truth-in-sentencing and three strikes legislation: Prison populations, states budgets, and crime rates. Stanford Law and Policy Review, 11, 75-83.
46.
Tyler, T. R.
, & Boeckmann, R. J. (1997). Three strikes and you are out, but why? The psychology of public support for punishing rule breakers. Law and Society Review, 31, 237-265.
47.
Vaughn, M. S.
(1993). Listening to the experts: A national study of correctional administrators’ responses to prison overcrowding. Criminal Justice Review, 18, 12-25.
48.
Walker, J.
(1969). The diffusion of innovation among the states. American Political Science Review, 63, 880-899.
49.
Wooldredge, J.
(1996). Research note: A state-level analysis of sentencing policies and inmate crowding in state prisons. Crime and Delinquency, 42, 456-466.
50.
Wooldredge, J.
, & Gordon, J. (1997). Predicting the estimated use of alternatives to incarceration. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 13, 121-142.
51.
Wright, G. C, Jr.
, Erikson, R. S., & McIver, J. P. (1985). Measuring state partisanship and ideology with survey data. Journal of Politics, 47, 469-89.
52.
Zimring, F. E.
(2001). Imprisonment rates and the new politics of criminal punishment. Punishment and Society, 3, 161-168.
53.
Zimring, F. E.
, & Hawkins, G. (1991). The scale of imprisonment. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
