Sentencing research has continued to address how legal and extralegal variables influence sentencing decisions. However, little attention has been given to how the implementation of habitual offender laws has influenced the sentencing of repeat, violent offenders. In this study, criminal history record and prior strike offenses are used to measure sentence length of convicted felony offenders in Washington State. By using both additive and interactive models, findings show that the influence of criminal history record and prior strikes on sentencing decisions is indirectly related to offense type (i.e., person, property, sex, and drug cases). Findings shed light on the various measures of prior record and their role in sentencing research.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Albonetti, C. A. (1991). An integration of theories to explain judicial discretion. Social Problems, 38, 247-266.
2.
Albonetti, C. A. (1997). Sentencing under federal sentencing guidelines: Effects of defendant characteristics, guilty pleas, and departures on sentencing outcomes for drug offenses, 1991-1992. Law and Society Review, 31, 789-822.
3.
Albonetti, C. A. (1998). Direct and indirect effects of case complexity, guilty pleas, and offender characteristics on sentencing for offenders convicted of a white-collar offense prior to sentencing guidelines. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 14, 353-378.
4.
Austin, J., Clark, J., Hardyman, P., & Henry, A. D. (1999). The impact of ‘three strikes and you’re out’. Punishment and Society, 1, 131-162.
5.
Berk, R. (1983). An introduction to sample selection bias in sociological data. American Sociological Review, 48, 386-398.
6.
Clark, J., Austin, J., & Henry, A. D. (1998). ‘Three strikes and you’re out’: Are repeat offender laws having their anticipated effects? Judicature, 81, 144-149.
7.
Crawford, C. (2000). Gender, race, and habitual offender sentencing in Florida. Criminology, 38, 263-280.
8.
Crawford, C., Chiricos, T., & Kleck, G. (1998). Race, racial threat, and sentencing of habitual offenders. Criminology, 36, 481-511.
9.
Cushman, R. C. (1996). Effect on the local criminal justice system. In D. Shichor & D. K. Sechrest (Eds.), Three strikes and you’re out: Vengeance as public policy (pp. 90-113). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
10.
DiIulio, J. J. (1991). No escape: The future of American corrections. New York: Basic Books.
11.
Engen, R. L., & Gainey, R. R. (2000). Modeling the effects of legally relevant and extralegal factors under sentencing guidelines: The rules have changed. Criminology, 38, 1207-1230.
12.
Forst, B., & Rhodes, W. M. (1982). Structuring the exercise of sentencing discretion in the federal courts. Federal Probation, 46, 3-13.
13.
Greenwood, P. W., Rydell, C. P., Abrahamse, A. F., Caulkins, J. P., Chiesa, J., Model, K. E, et al. (1994). Three strikes and you’re out: Estimated benefits and costs of California’s new mandatory sentencing law. Santa Monica, CA: Rand.
14.
Kempf-Leonard, K., & Sample, L. L. (2001). Have federal sentencing guidelines reduced severity? An examination of one circuit. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 17, 111-144.
15.
Kramer, J. H., & Steffensmeier, D. (1993). Race and imprisonment decisions. Sociological Quarterly, 34, 357-376.
16.
Kramer, J. H., & Ulmer, J. T. (1996). Sentencing disparity and departures from guidelines. Justice Quarterly, 13, 81-106.
17.
Miethe, T. D., & Moore, C. A. (1986). Racial differences in criminal processing: The consequences of model selection on conclusion about differential treatment. Sociological Quarterly, 27, 217-237.
18.
Moore, C. A., & Miethe, T. D. (1986). Regulated and unregulated sentencing decisions: An analysis of first-year practices under Minnesota’s felony sentencing guidelines. Law and Society Review, 20, 253-277.
19.
Myers, M., & Talarico S. (1987). The social contexts of criminal sentencing. New York: Springer-Verlag.
20.
Peterson, R. D., & Hagan, J. (1984). Changing conceptions of race: Towards an account of anomalous findings of sentencing research. American Sociological Review, 49, 56-70.
21.
Revised Code of Washington 9.92.040(05). Olympia, WA: Washington State Statute Law Committee.
22.
Revised Code of Washington 9.94A (21). Olympia, WA: Washington State Statute Law Committee.
23.
Revised Code of Washington 9.94A. Persistent Offender Accountability Act. Initiative Measure No. 593. Olympia, WA: Washington State Statute Law Committee.
24.
Roberts, J. V. (1997). The role of criminal record in the sentencing process. In M. Tonry (Ed.), Crime and justice: A review of research (Vol. 22, pp. 303-362). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
25.
Spohn, C., & Cederblom, J. (1991). Race and disparities in sentencing: A test of the liberation hypothesis. Justice Quarterly, 8, 305-327.
26.
Spohn, C., & Holleran, D. (2000). The imprisonment penalty paid by young unemployed Black and Hispanic male offenders. Criminology, 38, 281-306.
27.
State of Washington Sentencing Guidelines Commission. (2002). A statistical summary of adult felony sentencing: Fiscal year 2001. Olympia: Author.
28.
Steffensmeier, D., & Demuth, S. (2000). Ethnicity and sentencing outcomes in U.S. federal courts: Who is punished more harshly? American Sociological Review, 65, 705-729.
29.
Steffensmeier, D., Ulmer, J., & Kramer, J. (1998). The interaction of race, gender, and age in criminal sentencing: The punishment cost of being young, Black, and male. Criminology, 36, 763-797.
30.
Talarico, S. M. (1979). Judicial decisions and sanction patterns in criminal justice. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 70, 117-124.
31.
Tonry, M. (1995). Malign neglect: Race, crime and punishment in America. New York: Oxford University Press.
32.
Ulmer, J., & Kramer, J. (1996). Court Communities under sentencing guidelines: Dilemmas of formal rationality and sentencing disparity. Criminology, 34, 383-408.
33.
Ulmer, J. T. (1997). Social worlds of sentencing: Court communities under sentencing guidelines. Albany: State University of New York Press.
34.
Ulmer, J. T. (2000). The rules have changed-so proceed with caution: A comment on Engen and Gainey’s method for modeling sentencing outcomes under guidelines. Criminology, 38, 1231-1244.
35.
U.S. Department of Justice. (1991). Priority prosecution of high-rate dangerous offenders. Research in action. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice.
36.
U.S. Department of Justice. (1997a). Three strikes and you’re out: A review of state legislation. Research in brief. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice.
37.
U.S. Department of Justice. (1997b). Felony sentences in the United States, 1994 (Bulletin NCJ-165149). Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics.
38.
U.S. Department of Justice. (1999a). Effects of judges’ sentencing decisions on criminal careers. Research in brief. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice.
39.
U.S. Department of Justice. (1999b). The fragmentation of sentencing and corrections in America. Sentencing & corrections: Issues for the 21st century. Papers from the Executive Sessions on Sentencing and Corrections, No. 1. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice.
40.
U.S. Department of Justice. (1999c). Reforming sentencing and corrections for just punishment and public safety. Sentencing & corrections: Issues for the 21st century. Papers from the Executive Sessions on Sentencing and Corrections, No. 4. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice.
41.
U.S. Department of Justice. (2000). Prisoners in 1999 (Bulletin NCJ-183476). Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics.
42.
Welch, S., Gruhl, J., & Spohn, C. (1984). The influence of alternative measures of prior record. Criminology, 22, 214-227.
43.
Zatz, M. S. (1987). The changing forms of racial/ethnic biases in sentencing. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 24, 69-92.
44.
Zimring, F. E., & Hawkins, G. (1991). The scale of imprisonment. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
45.
Zimring, F. E., Hawkins, G., & Kamin, S. (2001). Punishment and democracy: Three strikes and you’re out in California. New York: Oxford University Press.
