Sentencing decisions are the product of a group of courtroom actors, primarily judges and district attorneys. Although the structure of the courtroom workgroup and the interdependencies among members are assumed to be important determinants of sentencing decisions, the degree of this importance and the specific mechanisms through which workgroups affect these decisions have not been investigated. This study used data from the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing (PCS) for the years 1990 to 2000 to examine how three social psychological aspects of courtroom workgroups (similarity, proximity, and stability) affect sentencing decisions. Results indicated (a) that workgroups generally had very high levels of similarity in terms of race, gender, and political party but lower levels of similarity in terms of age, college education, and law school education and (b) that proximity and stability were generally high. Controlling for individual, case, and distal contextual factors, workgroup factors affected the decision to incarcerate, the decision to impose fines, and the decision to impose restitution. In particular, proximity increased the use of economic sanctions relative to incarceration and stability was associated with a decrease in the imposition of economic sanctions. Similarity had inconsistent effects.
Byrne, D.E. ( 1971). The attraction paradigm. New York : Academic Press.
2.
Carroll, J.S., Perkowitz, W.T., Lurigio, A.J., & Weaver, F.M. ( 1987). Sentencing goals, causal attributions, ideology, and personality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 52(1), 107-118.
3.
Carter, R.M., & Wilkins, L.T. ( 1967). Some factors in sentencing policy. Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 58(4), 503-514.
4.
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. (1989-1999). The Pennsylvania manual (Vol. 109-114). Harrisburg, PA: Department of General Services.
5.
Dixon, J. ( 1995). The organizational context of criminal sentencing. American Journal of Sociology, 100(5), 1157-1198.
6.
Eisenstein, J., Flemming, R.B., & Nardulli, P.F. (1988). The contours of justice: Communities and their courts. Boston: Little, Brown.
7.
Eisenstein, J., & Jacob, H. ( 1977). Felony justice: An organizational analysis of criminal courts. Boston: Little, Brown.
8.
Federal Bureau of Investigation. (1990). Crime in the United States: Uniform crime reports. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.
9.
Federal Bureau of Investigation. (1995). Crime in the United States: Uniform crime reports. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.
10.
Festinger, L., Schachter, S., & Back, K. ( 1950). Social pressures in informal groups: A study of a housing community. New York: Harper.
11.
Goggin, M.L. ( 1986). The "too few cases/too many variables" problem in implementation research. Western Political Quarterly, 39(2), 328-347.
12.
Goodman, P.S., & Leyden, D.P. ( 1991). Familiarity and group productivity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76(4), 578-586.
13.
Gruhl, J., Spohn, C., & Welch, S. ( 1981). Women as policymakers: The case of trial judges. American Journal of Political Science, 25(2), 308-322.
14.
Guzzo, R.A., & Dickson, M.W. ( 1996). Teams in organizations: Recent research on performance and effectiveness. Annual Review of Psychology, 47, 307-338.
15.
Helms, R., & Jacobs, D. ( 2002). The political context of sentencing: An analysis of community and individual determinants. Social Forces, 81(2), 577-604.
16.
Hinds, P.J., Carley, K.M., Krackhardt, D., & Wholey, D. ( 2000). Choosing work group members: Balancing similarity, competence, and familiarity. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 81(2), 226-251.
17.
Hofer, P.J., Blackwell, K.R., & Ruback, R.B. ( 1999). The effect of the federal sentencing guidelines on inter-judge sentencing disparity. Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology , 90(1), 239-322.
18.
Holleran, D., & Spohn, C. ( 2004). On the use of the total incarceration variable in sentencing research. Criminology, 42(1), 211-240.
19.
Jehn, K.A., & Bezrukova, K. ( 2004). A field study of group diversity, workgroup context, and performance. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 25, 703-729.
20.
Jehn, K.A., Northcraft, G.B., & Neale, M.A. ( 1999). Why differences make a difference: A field study of diversity, conflict, and performance in workgroups. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(4), 741-763.
21.
Johnson, B. ( 2006). The multilevel context of criminal sentencing: Integrating judge- and county-level influences. Criminology, 44(2), 259-298.
22.
Katz, R. ( 1982). The effects of group longevity on project communication and performance. Administrative Science Quarterly, 27(1), 81-104.
23.
Konecni, V. J., & Ebbesen, E. B. (Eds.). (1982). The criminal justice system: A social-psychological analysis. San Francisco : W. H. Freeman.
24.
Kramer, J.H., & Ulmer, J.T. ( 1996). Sentencing disparity and departures from guidelines. Justice Quarterly, 13(1), 81-105.
25.
Levine, J.M., & Moreland, R.L. (1998). Small groups. In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (4th ed., Vol. 2, pp. 415-469). Boston: McGraw-Hill.
26.
Martindale-Hubbell. (2003 ). Martindale-Hubbell law directory (Vol. 13). New Providence, NJ: Martindale-Hubbell .
27.
McPherson, J.M., & Smith-Lovin, L. (1987). Homophily in voluntary organizations: Status distance and the composition of face-to-face groups . American Sociological Review, 52(3), 370-379.
28.
Myers, M.A., & Talarico, S.M. (1986). Urban justice, rural injustice? Urbanization and its effect on sentencing. Criminology, 24(2), 367-391.
29.
Myers, M.A., & Talarico, S.M. (1987). The social contexts of criminal sentencing. New York: Springer-Verlag.
30.
Nardulli, P.F., Eisenstein, J., & Flemming, R.B. (1988). The tenor of justice: Criminal courts and the guilty plea process. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
31.
National Prosecutors Survey. (2001). U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics .
32.
Newcomb, T.M. ( 1961). The acquaintance process. New York : Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
33.
Newcomb, T.M. ( 1963). Persistence and regression of changed attitudes: Long-range studies. Journal of Social Issues, 19, 3-14.
34.
Olson, D.E., Weisheit, R.A., & Ellsworth, T. ( 2001). Getting down to business: A comparison of rural and urban probationers, probation sentences, and probation outcomes. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 17(1), 4-18.
35.
Paternoster, R., Brame, R., Mazerolle, P., & Piquero, A. ( 1998). Using the correct statistical test for the equality of regression coefficients. Criminology, 36(4), 859-866.
36.
Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing. (1997 ). Sentencing in Pennsylvania1995: 1995-1996, Annual report. State College: Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing.
37.
Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association. ( 2004). District attorneys directory. Available from http://www.pdaa.org
38.
Raudenbush, S.W., & Bryk, A.S. ( 2002). Hierarchical linear models: Applications and data analysis methods. (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
39.
Ruback, R.B., Ruth, G.R., & Shaffer, J.N. ( 2005). Assessing policy in criminal sentencing: A statewide multilevel analysis of restitution orders in Pennsylvania. Crime & Delinquency, 51(3), 318-342.
40.
Ruback, R.B., Shaffer, J.N., & Logue, M. ( 2004). The imposition and effects of restitution in Pennsylvania: Effects of size of county and specialized collections units. Crime and Delinquency, 50, 168-188.
41.
Spohn, C. ( 2000). Thirty years of sentencing reform: The quest for a racially neutral sentencing process. Criminal Justice: The National Institute of Justice Journal, 3, 427-501.
42.
Steffensmeier, D., & Britt, C.L. ( 2001). Judges’ race and judicial decision making: Do Black judges sentence differently? Social Science Quarterly, 82(4), 749-764.
43.
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.
44.
Steffensmeier, D., & Hebert, C. ( 1999). Women and men policymakers: Does the judge’s gender affect the sentencing of criminal defendants? Social Forces , 77(3), 1163-1196.
45.
Steffensmeier, D., Kramer, J.H., & Ulmer, J.T. ( 1995). Age differences in sentencing. Justice Quarterly, 12(3), 583.
46.
Steffensmeier, D., Ulmer, J.T., & Kramer, J.H. ( 1998). The interaction of race, gender, and age in criminal sentencing: The punishment cost of being young, Black, and male. Criminology, 36(4), 763-797.
47.
Tsui, A.S., Porter, L.W., & Egan, T.D. ( 2002). When both similarities and dissimilarities matter: Extending the concept of relational demography. Human Relations, 55(8), 899-929.
48.
Ulmer, J.T., & Johnson, B. ( 2004). Sentencing in context: A multilevel analysis. Criminology, 42(1), 137-177.
