Celesta A. Albonetti

Race, Class, and the Perception of Criminal Injustice in America'

The results of two research literatures, one dealing with criminal sentencing and the other with public ranking of crime seriousness, have raised doubts that conflict exists in American society about issues of criminal justice. This paper offers a different and more direct approach to this issue by analyzing public perceptions of criminal injustice and by assessing the capacity of conflict theory to explain them. Our analysis is based on a national survey, and it focuses on the race, class, and status positions of the respondents, with class position measured in neo-Marxian terms. Three major findings are (i) that black Americans are considerably more likely than white Americans to perceive criminal injustice; (ii) that regardless of race, members of the surplus population are significantly more likely than members of other classes to perceive criminal injustice; and (iii) that class position conditions the relationship of race to the perception of criminal injustice, with the division between the races in these perceptions being most acute in the professional managerial class. These findings constitute substantial evidence that race and class conflict exist with regard to issues of criminal injustice, and that neither kind of conflict can properly be understood without consideration of the other. Implications for Marxist and non-Marxist criminologies are indicated.

The Differential Sentencing of White-Collar Offenders in Ten Federal District Courts

While sociologists have long debated the relationship between the status characteristics of criminal offenders and the sentences they receive, they have done so with data sets drawn from state courts whose prosecutorial resources are focused almost entirely on low status defendants. Qualitative and quantitative data analyzed in this paper are drawn from ten federal district courts whose statutes and resources provide greater potential for the prosecution of the white-collar crimes of higher status offenders. Three questions are addressed: (1) Are there substantial jurisdictional differences in the prosecution of white-collar cases? if so, (2) Are there corresponding jurisdictional differences in the sentencing of white-collar cases? and (3) Within jurisdictions, are there further differences in the factors that influence sentencing decisions in white-collar as compared to other kinds of cases? The data are analyzed from a perspective that emphasizes organizational considerations: we conceptualize the criminal justice process as a loosely coupled system and the use of prosecutorial resources as proactive and reactive. We argue that the expanded prosecution of white-collar persons for their white-collar crimes requires a proactive prosecutorial policy and a tightening of the coupling between plea negotiations and sentencing decisions in the prosecutorial and judicial subsystems. Our quantitative analysis reveals that one district follows a uniquely proactive pattern. As expected, this proactive district also exhibits a unique leniency in the sentencing of college educated white-collar criminals that is related to earlier plea and charging decisions. A rather different and unanticipated pattern of leniency is found in this district for less educated white-collar offenders. A conclusion of this study is that there may be an inverse relationship between the volume of white-collar prosecutions and the severity with which they are sentenced.

Race and the Probability of Pleading Guilty

The legal ramifications of pleading guilty and findings of an interdependence between pleading guilty and sentence severity suggest that the guilty plea decision is a significent turning point in case processing. The present research examines the variables affecting the probability of pleading guilty. The first analysis involves estimating a single probit equation of main effects of variables previously found to be related to pleading guilty. A second analysis is conducted estimating the same equation separately for black defendants and white defendants. Findings from the first part of the analysis indicate that physical evidence, number of charges, and confessing to the crime during police/prosecutor interrogation increase the probability of pleading guilty, whereas the number of witnesses, use of a weapon, and offenses carrying a minimum penalty of 5 years in custody with no maximum prison term decrease the probability of pleading guilty. Findings from the second analysis indicate that the effect of marital status, prior record of felony convictions, type of counsel, number of charges, and use of a weapon on the probability of pleading guilty varies by defendants race. The research concludes by offering several competing explanations of these findings in hope of stimulating further research on the variables affecting the route of case disposition in felony processing.

Recidivism Among Drug Offenders: A Survival Analysis of the Effects of Offender Characteristics, Type of Offense, and Two Types of Intervention

The determinants of recidivism are increasingly becoming the focus of public concern. This study explores the relative effect of type of intervention, offender characteristics, and type of incident offense on time to a petition to revoke probation and time to a probation revocation. Our analysis of intervention effects includes both parametric and nonparametric estimation procedures. Estimating five distributional forms of survival and a proportional hazard model for each measure of recidivism, the analysis indicates no difference in the effect of a program of drug monitoring and treatment, compared to drug monitoring only, for either of the two measures of recidivism. In addition, findings indicate that younger offenders and African American offenders have a shorter time to a petition to revoke probation. We also found a reduced time to failure for a probation revocation for African American offenders and offenders with a prior arrest record. Our findings offer empirical support for a reconsideration of the type of intervention effective in deterring offenders while on probation.

Prosecutorial discretion to defer criminalization: The effects of defendant's ascribed and achieved status characteristics

This research contributes to a further understanding of prosecutorial discretion by exploring tenets of casual attribution theory and etiology of bias theory as each informs an uncertainty avoidance perspective on the prosecutors decision to divert felony drug defendants from criminal prosecution and into a treatment program. The sociolegal consequences of the exercise of this early screening decision are expressed by both conflict theorists and labeling theorists. Our analysis involves estimating main effects and interaction effects of defendant ascribed status and achieved status on the likelihood of diversion. The findings indicate partial support for hypotheses derived, from the theoretical perspectives pursued. In addition these findings point to a more complex model of the subjective nature of the exercise of prosecutorial discretion, a model that benefits from understanding the salience of minimizing uncertainty in the decision to criminals.

Criminal Justice Decision Making as a Stratification Process: The Role of Race and Stratification Resources in Pretrial Release

Our purpose is to bridge the criminal justice and stratification research literatures and to pursue the argument that homologous structural principles stratify allocation processes across central institutions of American society. The principle observed here in the making of bail decisions, as in earlier studies of the allocation of earnings, is that stratification resources operate to the greater advantage of whites than blacks. The operation of this principle is established through the estimation of covariance structure models of pretrial release decisions affecting 5660 defendants in 10 federal courts. Education and income are treated in this study as observed components of a composite construct, stratification resources, which works to the greater advantage of whites. Prior record is also found to operate to the greater advantage of whites. Two further variables, dangerousness and community ties, increase bail severity among blacks and whites. While the effect of community ties has been legally legitimized since the Bail Reform Act of 1966, the effect of dangerousness was not so legitimized until the Bail Reform Act of 1984. However, because our data precede the latter act, they confirm that this act simply reinstitutionalized earlier practice. Meanwhile, our race-specific findings may explain why although this and earlier studies find negligible main effects of race on criminal justice outcomes, black Americans nonetheless perceive more criminal injustice than do whites. In the criminal justice system, as in other spheres of American society, whites receive a better return on their resources, but our findings that the statutory severity of the offense and dangerousness work to the relative disadvantage of white defendants challenges conflict and labeling theorys one-dimensional characterization of black defendant disadvantage.

Direct and Indirect Effects of Case Complexity, Guilty Pleas, and Offender Characteristics on Sentencing for Offenders Convicted of a White-Collar Offense Prior to Sentencing Guidelines

Previous research on the punishment of offenders convicted of a white-collar offense estimated models that specify only direct effects of defendant characteristics, offense-related variables, and guilty pleas on sentence severity. Drawing from conflict or labeling theories, much of this research focused on the effects of offenders socioeconomic status on sentence outcomes. Findings from this research are inconsistent about the relationship between defendant characteristics and sentence severity. These studies overlook how differences in case complexity of white-collar offense and guilty pleas may intervene in the relationship between offender characteristics and sentence outcomes. This study seeks to contribute to an understanding of federal sentencing prior to the federal sentencing guidelines by testing a legal-bureaucratic theory of sentencing that hypothesizes an interplay between case complexity, guilty pleas and length of imprisonment. This interplay reflects the interface between the legal ramifications of pleading guilty, prosecutorial interests in efficiency and finality of case disposition in complex white-collar cases, and sentence severity. Using structural equation modeling, a four-equation model of sentencing that specifies case complexity and guilty pleas as intervening variables in the relationship between offender characteristics and length of imprisonment is estimated. Several findings are noteworthy. First, the hypothesized interplay between case complexity, guilty pleas, and sentence severity is supported. Second, the effect of offenders educational attainment on sentence severity is indirect via case complexity and guilty pleas. Third, offenders race and gender effect length of imprisonment both directly and indirectly through the intervening effect of case complexity and guilty pleas. These findings indicate the need to specify sentencing models that consider the direct and indirect effects of offender characteristics, offense characteristics, and guilty pleas on judicial discretion at sentencing.

Charge reduction : an analysis of prosecutorial discretion in Burglary and Robbery cases

Although a substantial number of researchers have studied charge reductions taking place within the context of guilty plea negotiations, few have focused on estimating the determinants of charge reductions taking place at the initial screening decision. The prosecutors decision to reduce original felony charges to a misdemeanor has serious social, legal, and economic consequences for the suspect. This paper presents a model of the variables affecting the likelihood of such a reduction in burglary and robbery offenses. Drawing from Littrells “principled charging” perspective and earlier research on labeling, the analysis involves estimating logistic regression equations specifying both main and interaction effects of the suspects gender and race and variables related to suspect character, case seriousness, and legal seriousness. Partial support is found for Littrells perspective.

Probation revocation: A proportional hazards model of the conditioning effects of social disadvantage

Most studies find that offenders age, gender, ethnicity, prior arrest record, severity of the current offense and level of supervision significantly influence time to probation failure. There is little evidence to show that treatment interventions significantly affect either the likelihood of failure or the time to failure. We propose that an offenders prior record and lower education level — indicators of social disadvantage — directly affect the mean time to a probation revocation. Further, we suggest that social disadvantage may condition the effects of other offender characteristics, incident offense characteristics, and treatment intervention on failure time. Using a proportional hazards model of probation revocation, we find that intervention increases the risk of failure, as well as partial support for our hypothesis of the conditioning effect of offenders social disadvantage.

Team Classification in State Correctional Institutions: Its Association with Inmate and Staff Attitudes.

Team classification seeks to bring together various levels of correctional staff and the inmate to discuss and resolve issues pertaining to such matters as work and cell assignment, disciplinary action, furlough requests, and merit time considerations. The analysis of questionnaire data obtained from samples of 1,295 inmates and 555 staff in Missouris adult correctional facilities supports the hypotheses that team classification, when successfully implemented, is (1) positively associated with staff attitudes toward inmates, work assignments, and other staff, and, with inmate attitudes toward staff and both living and program assignments; (2) negatively associated with staff punitiveness and role conflict and with inmate alienation. An effective team classification process that enables staff from various levels to work together and that permits the inmate to represent his interests in the decision-making process provides each member with a greater commitment to voice in and understand the institutions treatment of inmates. This, in turn, improves their perception of the living/working conditions within the institution.