Studies of the federal sentencing process typically focus on sentencing decisions at the national level. These studies assume, either explicitly or implicitly, that there is little interdistrict variation in case processing policies and procedures and that findings regarding sentence outcomes at the national level therefore reflect the reality of decisionmaking in each of the U.S. District Courts. This study uses data on offenders sentenced in three U.S. District Courts to test the assumption of national uniformity in the federal sentencing process. The results of the analysis revealed that the odds of incarceration did not vary among the three districts and that sentence length did not vary at all between Nebraska and Minnesota, but varied by eight months between Nebraska and Southern Iowa and between Minnesota and Southern Iowa. There were, on the other hand, significant interdistrict differences in sentence discounts for downward departures and departures for substantial assistance. Further analysis revealed that most of the interjurisdictional differences in prison sentences were generated by cases in which offenders received substantial assistance departures.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AlbonettiC. A. (1997). Sentencing under the federal sentencing guidelines: Effects of defendant characteristics, guilty pleas, and departures on sentence outcomes for drug offenses, 1991–1992. Law & Society Review, 31, 789–822.
2.
AlbonettiC. A. (2002). The joint conditioning effect of defendant's gender and ethnicity on length of imprisonment under the federal sentencing guidelines for drug trafficking/manufacturing offenders. Journal of Gender, Race, and Justice, 6, 39–60.
3.
AndersonJ. M.KlingJ. R., & StithK. (1999). Measuring interjudge sentencing disparity: Before and after the federal sentencing guidelines. Journal of Law and Economics, XLII, 271–307.
4.
BerkR. A. (1983). An introduction to sample selection bias in sociological data. American Sociological Review, 48, 386–398.
5.
BrittC. L. (2000). Social context and racial disparities in punishment decisions. Justice Quarterly17, 707–732.
6.
DixonJ. (1995). The organizational context of criminal court sentencing. American Journal of Sociology, 100, 1157–1198.
7.
EisensteinJ.FlemmingR. B., & NardulliP. F. (1988). The contours of justice: Communities and their courts. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company.
8.
EisensteinJ., & JacobH. (1991). Felony justice: An organizational analysis of criminal courts. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
9.
EngenR., & GaineyR. (2000). Modeling the effects of legally relevant and extralegal factors under sentencing guidelines: The rules have changed. Criminology, 38, 1207–1229.
10.
EverettR. S., & NienstedtB. C. (1999). Race, remorse, and sentence reduction: Is saying you=re sorry enough?Justice Quarterly, 16, 99–122.
11.
EverettR. S., & WojtkiewiczR. A. (2002). Difference, disparity, and race/ethnic bias in federal sentencing. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 18, 189–211.
12.
FrankelM. (1972a). Criminal sentences: Law without order. New York: Hall & Wang.
13.
FrankelM. (1972b). Lawlessness in sentencing. University of Cincinnati Law Review, 41, 1–54.
14.
HebertC. G. (1997). Sentencing outcomes of black, Hispanic, and white males convicted under federal sentencing guidelines. Criminal Justice Review, 22, 133–156.
15.
HeckmanJ. J. (1974). Shadow prices, market wages, and labor supply. Econometrics, 42, 679–694.
16.
HeydebrandW., & SeronC. (1990). Rationalizing justice: The political economy of federal district courts. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
17.
HoferP. J.BlackwellK. R., & RubackR. B. (1999). The effect of the federal sentencing guidelines on inter-judge sentencing disparity. The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 90, 239–321.
18.
KauttP. M. (2002). Location, location, location: Interdistrict and intercircuit variation in sentence outcomes for federal drug-trafficking offenses. Justice Quarterly, 19, 633–705.
19.
KauttP. M., & SpohnC. (2002). Cracking down on black drug offenders? Testing for interactions between offender race, drug type, and sentencing strategy in federal drug sentences. Justice Quarterly, 19, 1–35.
20.
Kempf-LeonardK. & SampleL. L. (2001). Have the federal sentencing guidelines reduced severity? An examination of one circuit. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 17, 111–144.
21.
KramerJ. H., & UlmerJ. T. (1996). Sentencing disparity and departures from guidelines. Justice Quarterly, 13, 81–106.
22.
LaCasseC., & PayneA. A. (1999). Federal sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimum sentences: Do defendants bargain in the shadow of the judge?Journal of Law and Economics, XLII, 245–269.
23.
LanganP. (1996). Sentence reductions for drug traffickers for assisting federal prosecutors. Unpublished manuscript.
24.
MaxfieldL. D., & KramerJ. H. (1998). Substantial assistance: An empirical yardstick gauging equity in current federal policy and practice. Washington, DC: U.S. Sentencing Commission.
25.
MustardD. (2001). Racial, ethnic and gender disparities in sentencing: Evidence from the U.S. federal courts. Journal of Law and Economics, 44, 285–314.
26.
NagelI. H., & SchulhoferS. J. (1992). A tale of three cities: An empirical study of charging and bargaining practices under the federal sentencing guidelines. Southern California Law Review, 66, 501–566.
27.
NardulliP. F.EisensteinJ., & FlemmingR. B. (1988). The tenor of justice: Criminal courts and the guilty plea process. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
28.
SavelsbergJ. (1992). Law that does not fit society: Sentencing guidelines as a neoclassical reaction to the dilemmas of substantivized law. American Journal of Sociology, 97, 1346–1381.
29.
SpohnC. (2000). Thirty years of sentencing reform: The quest for a racially neutral sentencing process. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.
30.
SteffensmeierD., & DemuthS. (2000). Ethnicity and sentencing outcomes in U.S. federal courts: Who is punished more harshly?American Sociological Review, 65, 705–729.
31.
StithK., & CabranesJ. A. (1998). Fear of judging: Sentencing guidelines in the federal courts. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
32.
TonryM. (1996). Sentencing matters. New York: Oxford University Press.
33.
UlmerJ. T. (1997). Social worlds of sentencing: Court communities under sentencing guidelines. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
34.
UlmerJ. T., & JohnsonB. (2004). Sentencing in context: A multilevel analysis. Criminology, 42, 137–177.
35.
UlmerJ. T., & KramerJ. H. (1998). The use and transformation of formal decision-making criteria: Sentencing guidelines, organizational contexts and case processing strategies. Social Problems, 45, 248–267.
36.
United States General Accounting Office. (1992). Sentencing guidelines: Central questions remain unanswered. Washington, DC: U.S. General Accounting Office.
37.
United States Sentencing Commission. (2004). Fifteen years of guidelines sentencing: An assessment of how well the federal criminal justice system is achieving the goals of sentencing reform. Washington, DC: United States Sentencing Commission.
38.
United States Sentencing Commission. (2000). 1999 sourcebook of federal sentencing statistics. Washington, DC: United States Sentencing Commission.
39.
United States Sentencing Commission. (1993). Federal sentencing guidelines manual. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Co.
40.
United States Sentencing Commission. (1991a). The federal sentencing guidelines: A report on the operation of the guidelines system and short-term impacts on disparity in sentencing, use of incarceration, and prosecutorial discretion and plea bargaining. Washington, DC: U.S. Sentencing Commission.
41.
United States Sentencing Commission. (1991b). Special report to Congress: Mandatory minimum penalties in the federal criminal justice system. Washington, DC: U.S. Sentencing Commission.
42.
WeisselbergC. D., & DunworthT. (1993). Inter-district variation under the guidelines: The trees may be more significant than the forest. Federal Sentencing Reporter, 6, 25–32.
43.
WilkinsW. W.Jr., & SteerJ. R. (1990). Relevant conduct: The cornerstone of the federal sentencing guidelines. South Carolina Law Review, 41, 495–531.
