Judicial sentencing decision research most often examines the legal, defendant, and judicial characteristics that predict incarceration and sentence length decisions. Often ignored are the social worlds of the courtroom and judge in how these relate to sentencing decision processes and outcomes. The general framework of symbolic interactionism, through the theories of expectation states and situated identity, provides a foundation to understand the social processes of sentencing. A self-report survey administered to Wisconsin Circuit Court judges (n = 74) gathered information about these social processes that might be used to predict sentencing patterns. The results strengthen the position that judges’ decisions are not outside of social pressures, and judges develop sentencing decisions that align with the viewpoints of others as well as interpretations of the legal code.
AlbonettiC. A. (1991). An integration of theories to explain judicial discretion. Social Problems, 38, 247-266.
2.
AlexanderC. N.KnightG. W. (1971). Situated identities and social psychological experimentation. Sociometry, 34, 65-82.
3.
AlexanderC. N.LauderdaleP. (1977). Situated identities and social influence. Sociometry, 40, 225-233.
4.
AlexanderC. N.RuddJ. (1981). Situated identities and response variables. In TedeschiJ. T.(Ed.), Impression management theory and social psychological research (pp. 83-103).New York: Academic Press.
5.
AlexanderC. N.RuddJ. (1984). Predicting behaviors from situated identities. Social Psychology Quarterly, 47, 172-177.
6.
AlexanderC. N.Jr.WeilH. G. (1969) Players, persons, and purposes: Situational meaning and the prisoner’s dilemma game. Sociometry, 32, 121-144.
7.
AlexanderC. N.WileyM. G. (1981). Situated activity and identity formation. In RosenbergM.TurnerR. H. (Eds.), Social psychology: Sociological perspectives (pp. 269-289). New York: Basic Books.
8.
BergerJ.ConnerT. L.FisekM. H. (1974). Expectation states theory: A theoretical research program. Cambridge, MS: Winthrop.
9.
DillmanD. A. (2007). Mail and internet surveys: The tailored design method (2nd ed.). Hobokon, NJ: John Wiley.
10.
EisensteinJ.FlemmingR. B.NardulliP. F. (1988). The contours of justice: Communities and their courts. Boston: Little Brown.
11.
EisensteinJ.JacobH. (1977). Felony justice: An organizational analysis of criminal court. Lanham, MS: University Press of America.
12.
FallonR. H. (1994). Non-legal theory in judicial decision making. Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, 17, 86-98.
13.
FisekM. H.BergerJ.NormanR. Z. (1991). Participation in heterogeneous and homogeneous groups: A theoretical integration. American Journal of Sociology, 97, 114-142.
14.
FlemmingR. B.NardulliP. F.EisensteinJ. (1992). The craft of justice: Politics and work in criminal court communities. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
15.
FrankelM. E. (1973). Criminal sentences: Law without order. New York: Hill and Wang
16.
FrankelM. (1992). Lawlessness in sentencing. In von HirschA.AshworthA. (Eds.), Principled sentencing (pp. 265-271). Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press.
17.
GaylinW. (1974). Partial justice: A study of bias in sentencing. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
18.
GoffmanE. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Anchor Books.
19.
LevinM. A. (1977). Urban politics and the criminal courts. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
20.
MearsD. P. (1998). The sociology of sentencing: Reconceptualizing decision-making processes and outcomes. Law & Society Review, 32, 667-724.
21.
MorrisN. (1951). The habitual criminal. Cambridge, MS: Harvard University Press.
22.
MyersM. (1988). Social background and the sentencing behavior of judges. Criminology, 26, 649-675.
23.
MyersM.TalaricoS. M. (1987). The social contexts of criminal sentencing. New York: Springer-Verlag.
24.
NobilingT.SpohnC.DeloneM. (1998). A tale of two counties: Unemployment and sentence severity. Justice Quarterly, 15, 459-485.
25.
SpohnC. (2009). How do judges decide? The search for fairness and justice in punishment. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
26.
Stryker (1980). Symbolic interactionism: A social structural version. Menlo Park, CA: Benjamin/Cummings.
27.
StrykerS.VryanK. D. (2003). The symbolic interactionist frame. In DelamaterJ. (Ed.), Handbook of social psychology (pp. 3-28). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.
28.
TouheyJ. C. (1974). Situated identities, attitude similarity and interpersonal attraction. Sociometry, 37, 363-374.
29.
UlmerJ. T. (1997). Social worlds of sentencing: Court communities under sentencing guidelines. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
30.
UlmerJ. T.JohnsonB. (2004). Sentencing in context: A multilevel analysis. Criminology, 42, 137-177.
31.
von HirschA. (1985). Past or future crimes: Deservedness and dangerousness in the sentencing of criminals. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
32.
WalkerS., (2010). Sense and nonsense about crime, drugs, and communities: A policy guide (7th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
33.
WalkerS.SpohnC.DeloneM. (2004). The color of justice: Race, ethnicity, and crime in America (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth.
34.
WiceP. (1991). Judges and lawyers: The human side of justice. New York: Harper Collins.
