Rebecca Richardson
Biographic Data
| ID | 4437776 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Rebecca Richardson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Rebecca |
| FAMILY NAME | Richardson |
| SIGNATURE | RICHARDSON R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Massachusetts Lowell |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8626-8600 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 11 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Who Minds Their Pleas and Queues? Quick and Slow Misdemeanor Pleas Pose Similar Risk of Incarceration
Millions of people in the United States are convicted of misdemeanor crimes annually, yet we know little about the processes generating these convictions. The current research used 87,248 misdemeanor cases from an urban Florida county to examine predictors and punishments for quick plea dispositions—pleas entered at defendants’ first court appearance. Results indicate that the 47% of defendants who pleaded quickly were more likely to receive a no…
Appearance, Stereotyping, and Prosecution: The Gendered Effects of Defendant Hair Color in Case Processing
This study considers the gendered effects on prosecutorial decision making of defendants’ hair color, which is the subject of pervasive stereotyping that can be directly linked to expectations about criminal justice treatment. After exploiting a unique combination of data from driver’s license applications and the prosecutor’s office case records in an urban southeastern county in the United States, the study finds that among White non-Hispanic d…
The impact of prosecutors’ office caseloads on case processing outcomes
Research Summary Contemporary criminal justice discourse frequently highlights rising caseloads as a crisis for prosecutors across the United States. Yet, empirical assessments of how caseloads impact prosecutorial decision making are scarce. This study exploits data on office caseloads and cases disposed between 2021 and 2024 in 19 prosecutors’ offices across Colorado to investigate the impact of office caseload pressure on plea and charge reduc…
Whose decision is it anyway? Defendants’ prior experience shapes prosecutorial case dismissal
Studies of early case processing outcomes in the United States typically assume that decisions are made unilaterally by the prosecutor, such that prior contact with the legal system is universally associated with harsher outcomes for defendants. However, this approach neglects the ways in which defendants are able to affect case outcomes, and that experienced defendants may be better positioned to do so. Contrasting expectations from the popular …
Evidence of cumulative disadvantage and the liberation hypothesis in court cases involving resisting arrest
The Association Between Misdemeanor Citation and Jail Placement
Jail population sizes are determined largely by decision-making in the courtroom. The current study recognizes the police officer’s influence in the courtroom and explores the impact of police officer decision-making on subsequent jail outcomes. Using administrative data on misdemeanor convictions processed in a mid-sized urban prosecutor’s office in Florida, I examine the relationship between discretionary citations in lieu of arrest, pretrial d…
Risk and Protective Factors of Self-harm and Suicidality in Adolescents: An Umbrella Review with Meta-Analysis
Suicide remains the second most common cause of death in young people aged 10–24 years and is a growing concern globally. The literature reports a vast number of factors that can predispose an adolescent to suicidality at an individual, relational, community, or societal level. There is limited high-level research identifying and understanding these risk and protective factors of adolescent suicidality. The present study used an umbrella review a…
Infectious disease risk communication and engagement using puppetry and related approaches for improving handwashing with soap in an informal settlement of Nairobi
Handwashing with soap (HWWS) has been estimated to have the potential to prevent 35% of the 704,880 deaths per year caused by diarrhoeal infectious diseases (UN Millennium Project, 2018), its wider risk reduction influence subsequently accentuated in times of COVID-19. However, this depends on place specific risk communication that leads to behaviour change, particularly amongst children in economically poor neighbourhoods. A study centred on fiv…
Time for Time: Uncovering Case Processing Duration as a Source of Punitiveness
The literature on sentencing has devoted ample consideration to how prosecutors and judges incorporate priorities such as retribution and public safety into their decision making, typically using legal and extralegal characteristics as analytic proxies. In contrast, the role of case processing efficiency in determining punishment outcomes has garnered little attention. Using recent data from a large Florida jurisdiction, we examine the influence …
A test of the bifurcation hypothesis in prosecutorial diversion
Research Summary This study offers a localized test of the bifurcation hypothesis, which suggests that jurisdictions adopting decarceral policies for lower‐level offenses often do so at the expense of increased punitiveness toward more serious offenses. Relying on fresh data from Florida, we examine how adopting a new diversion program targeting low‐level traffic offenses affects overall prosecutorial diversion decisions. The new program is assoc…
No idea whether he's Black, White, or purple”: Colorblindness and cultural scripting in prosecution
Prosecutors maintain immense power over criminal case processing. Yet, they have not historically been a major target for reforms designed to foster equality and reduce racial disparity in criminal justice outcomes. Using in‐depth interviews with 47 line prosecutors, this study explores how prosecutors think about race in criminal justice, and what they believe their role should be in addressing racial disparities. Results show that prosecutors b…
Response to social challenge in young bonnet ( Macaca radiata ) and pigtail ( Macaca nemestrina ) macaques is related to early maternal experiences
Previous experience affects how young primates respond to challenging social situations. The present retrospective study looked at one aspect of early experience, the quality of the mother‐infant relationship, to determine its relationship to young bonnet and pigtail macaques' responses to two social challenges: temporary maternal separation at 5‐6 months and permanent transfer to an unfamiliar peer group at 16–17 months. Relationship quality was…
No idea whether he's Black, White, or purple”: Colorblindness and cultural scripting in prosecution
Prosecutors maintain immense power over criminal case processing. Yet, they have not historically been a major target for reforms designed to foster equality and reduce racial disparity in criminal justice outcomes. Using in‐depth interviews with 47 line prosecutors, this study explores how prosecutors think about race in criminal justice, and what they believe their role should be in addressing racial disparities. Results show that prosecutors b…
Whose decision is it anyway? Defendants’ prior experience shapes prosecutorial case dismissal
Studies of early case processing outcomes in the United States typically assume that decisions are made unilaterally by the prosecutor, such that prior contact with the legal system is universally associated with harsher outcomes for defendants. However, this approach neglects the ways in which defendants are able to affect case outcomes, and that experienced defendants may be better positioned to do so. Contrasting expectations from the popular …
Evidence of cumulative disadvantage and the liberation hypothesis in court cases involving resisting arrest
Response to social challenge in young bonnet ( Macaca radiata ) and pigtail ( Macaca nemestrina ) macaques is related to early maternal experiences
Previous experience affects how young primates respond to challenging social situations. The present retrospective study looked at one aspect of early experience, the quality of the mother‐infant relationship, to determine its relationship to young bonnet and pigtail macaques' responses to two social challenges: temporary maternal separation at 5‐6 months and permanent transfer to an unfamiliar peer group at 16–17 months. Relationship quality was…
Time for Time: Uncovering Case Processing Duration as a Source of Punitiveness
The literature on sentencing has devoted ample consideration to how prosecutors and judges incorporate priorities such as retribution and public safety into their decision making, typically using legal and extralegal characteristics as analytic proxies. In contrast, the role of case processing efficiency in determining punishment outcomes has garnered little attention. Using recent data from a large Florida jurisdiction, we examine the influence …
A test of the bifurcation hypothesis in prosecutorial diversion
Research Summary This study offers a localized test of the bifurcation hypothesis, which suggests that jurisdictions adopting decarceral policies for lower‐level offenses often do so at the expense of increased punitiveness toward more serious offenses. Relying on fresh data from Florida, we examine how adopting a new diversion program targeting low‐level traffic offenses affects overall prosecutorial diversion decisions. The new program is assoc…
No idea whether he's Black, White, or purple”: Colorblindness and cultural scripting in prosecution
Prosecutors maintain immense power over criminal case processing. Yet, they have not historically been a major target for reforms designed to foster equality and reduce racial disparity in criminal justice outcomes. Using in‐depth interviews with 47 line prosecutors, this study explores how prosecutors think about race in criminal justice, and what they believe their role should be in addressing racial disparities. Results show that prosecutors b…
Infectious disease risk communication and engagement using puppetry and related approaches for improving handwashing with soap in an informal settlement of Nairobi
Handwashing with soap (HWWS) has been estimated to have the potential to prevent 35% of the 704,880 deaths per year caused by diarrhoeal infectious diseases (UN Millennium Project, 2018), its wider risk reduction influence subsequently accentuated in times of COVID-19. However, this depends on place specific risk communication that leads to behaviour change, particularly amongst children in economically poor neighbourhoods. A study centred on fiv…
The Association Between Misdemeanor Citation and Jail Placement
Jail population sizes are determined largely by decision-making in the courtroom. The current study recognizes the police officer’s influence in the courtroom and explores the impact of police officer decision-making on subsequent jail outcomes. Using administrative data on misdemeanor convictions processed in a mid-sized urban prosecutor’s office in Florida, I examine the relationship between discretionary citations in lieu of arrest, pretrial d…
Risk and Protective Factors of Self-harm and Suicidality in Adolescents: An Umbrella Review with Meta-Analysis
Suicide remains the second most common cause of death in young people aged 10–24 years and is a growing concern globally. The literature reports a vast number of factors that can predispose an adolescent to suicidality at an individual, relational, community, or societal level. There is limited high-level research identifying and understanding these risk and protective factors of adolescent suicidality. The present study used an umbrella review a…
Evidence of cumulative disadvantage and the liberation hypothesis in court cases involving resisting arrest
Who Minds Their Pleas and Queues? Quick and Slow Misdemeanor Pleas Pose Similar Risk of Incarceration
Millions of people in the United States are convicted of misdemeanor crimes annually, yet we know little about the processes generating these convictions. The current research used 87,248 misdemeanor cases from an urban Florida county to examine predictors and punishments for quick plea dispositions—pleas entered at defendants’ first court appearance. Results indicate that the 47% of defendants who pleaded quickly were more likely to receive a no…
Appearance, Stereotyping, and Prosecution: The Gendered Effects of Defendant Hair Color in Case Processing
This study considers the gendered effects on prosecutorial decision making of defendants’ hair color, which is the subject of pervasive stereotyping that can be directly linked to expectations about criminal justice treatment. After exploiting a unique combination of data from driver’s license applications and the prosecutor’s office case records in an urban southeastern county in the United States, the study finds that among White non-Hispanic d…
The impact of prosecutors’ office caseloads on case processing outcomes
Research Summary Contemporary criminal justice discourse frequently highlights rising caseloads as a crisis for prosecutors across the United States. Yet, empirical assessments of how caseloads impact prosecutorial decision making are scarce. This study exploits data on office caseloads and cases disposed between 2021 and 2024 in 19 prosecutors’ offices across Colorado to investigate the impact of office caseload pressure on plea and charge reduc…
Whose decision is it anyway? Defendants’ prior experience shapes prosecutorial case dismissal
Studies of early case processing outcomes in the United States typically assume that decisions are made unilaterally by the prosecutor, such that prior contact with the legal system is universally associated with harsher outcomes for defendants. However, this approach neglects the ways in which defendants are able to affect case outcomes, and that experienced defendants may be better positioned to do so. Contrasting expectations from the popular …
Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis (7 works) · Crime Patterns and Interventions (6 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Law, Economics, and Judicial Systems (5 works) · Computer Science (3 works) · Criminal justice (3 works) · Criminology (3 works) · Economic Justice (3 works) · Environmental health (3 works) · Law (3 works)