Does It Pay to Plead Guilty? Differential Sentencing and the Functioning of Criminal Courts
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4085236 |
|---|---|
| Authors | David Brereton (0000-0001-6358-3459), Jonathan D Casper (0009-0009-5722-1916) |
| Year | 1982 |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 45-70 |
| Publication date | 1982-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Law & Society Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0023-9216 • E-ISSN: 1540-5893 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/3053549 |
| OpenAlex | W2319940216 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 37 |
| References cited | 17 |
Do defendants who plead guilty receive lighter sentences than those with similar charges and attributes who exercise their right to trial? The assertion that they do has long been at the heart of the literature describing and explaining the plea-bargaining process, though it has been questioned in some important work published recently. The existence of sentence differentials is particularly hard to document statistically, because a successfully operating policy of punishing those who go to trial will in fact minimize the number of cases in which the sanction for trial has to be imposed. Examination of data from three California counties, as well as consideration of various theoretical concerns, leads us to argue that sentence differentials are likely to characterize jurisdictions whose disposition patterns are based on inducing most defendants to plead guilty
Criminology · Differential (mechanical device · Political science · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Engineering · Law · Law, Economics, and Judicial Systems · Legal and Constitutional Studies · Psychology
Understanding guilty pleas through the lens of social science
Sentencing, Trends, and Disparities
Race and disparities in sentencing
Prosecutorial Discretion and the Imposition of Mandatory Minimum Sentences
Where is the Evidence? Comparing the Effects of Evidence Strength and Demographic Characteristics on Plea Discounts
Trial Penalties under Florida’s Sentencing Guidelines
He Versus She
The Organizational Context of Criminal Sentencing
Effects of Individual Characteristics on Plea Negotiations Under Sentencing Guidelines
What Happens When Investigating A Crime Takes Up Too Much Time? An Examination of How Optimal Law Enforcement Theory Impacts Sentencing
The Use of Case Studies in Law and Social Science Research
The Impropriety of Plea Agreements
The Process Is the Punishment
Trials and Tribulations
Ambiguity and conflict in sentencing research
Tolerated contests? Plea and sentence in the Victorian magistrates' courts
Variables influencing sentencing severity
Race and sentencing
Sentencing reform, sentencing guidelines, and related issues
Deviation from sentencing guidelines
Predicting decisions rendered in criminal appeals
Disparities in extreme contexts
Variation in Trial Penalties Among Serious Violent Offenses
Race, Ethnicity, and Determinate Sentencing
An Explicit Test of Plea Bargaining in the “Shadow of the Trial”
The Timing of Court Processing
Adversarial and Nonadversarial Justice
Homicide and Bargained Justice
Trial Courts in the United States
Exploring sentencing in three European cities
Social control of the self’ and pleading guilty in criminal court
Guilty Plea Courts
An Integration of Theories to Explain Judicial Discretion
Symbol and Substance
Rethinking the Boundaries of Intimacy at the End of the Century
Pleas, priors, and prison
Going for the gold
Felony justice
The Prosecutor's Role in Plea Bargaining
Plea bargaining
American Criminal Justice
A Note on Plea Bargaining and Case Pressure
An Introduction to Multivariate Contingency Table Analysis
Mandatory Sentencing and the Abolition of Plea Bargaining
Alaska's Ban on Plea Bargaining
Plea Bargains, Concessions and the Courts
Some Determinants of the Method of Case Disposition
"In Defense of "Bargain Justice
Race as a Determinant of Criminal Sentences
He Takes Some of My Time; I Take Some of His
Plea Bargaining in Historical Perspective
Perspectives on Plea Bargaining
| Unique citing works | 37 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,86 |
| Citation span | 1983 - 2023 (41) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 36 |