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Interesting empirical study of sentencing in Nevada

By Douglas A. Berman

I just came across this paper on SSRN, titled "Felony Sentencing in Rural and Urban Courts: Comparing Formal Legal and Substantive Political Models in the West." Here is the abstract: This study explored two models of sentencing in urban and rural districts in Nevada (2007 felony sentencing data, N=10,873).  It was hypothesized that sentence lengths and dispositions would differ between rural and urban districts.  Furthermore, it was hypothesized that urban districts would follow a formal legal model ? in which only legal variables (crime features, criminal history) act as predictors of sentencing outcomes, whereas rural districts would follow a substantive political model ? in which extralegal factors (age, sex, race / ethnicity, etc.) also predict sentencing outcomes...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on September 15, 2009 (boomark / email).