Understanding Sentencing: The Interactions of Laws, Defendent Cahracteristics, Prosecutorial Behavior and Judicial

Project Summary for 2002-IJ-CX-0023 The project staff will develop a statistical model of sentencing guidelines using data available from the Maryland administrative Office of the Courts and working with the Maryland Sentencing Commission. The project concentrates on four key contributors to sentencing outcomes (i.e., the law, defendant characteristics, prosecutors and judges) to identify the contributions of various factors toward sentencing decisions and the interactions among these factors. The study will also examine the issues of racial disparity and the relationship between age and sentencing outcomes. The goals are: (1) to extend prior research into judicial discretion by identifying and explaining the discretion due to the legal environment and to the prosecutors at the charging stage and (2) to examine racial disparity in sentencing and the relationship between age and sentencing outcomes. Ca/ncf