Questioning Blackmun's Thesis
Does Uniformity in Sentencing Entail Unfairness
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4085995 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ben Grunwald (0000-0002-5409-751X, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 49 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 499-534 |
| Publication date | 2015-06-01 |
| 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 | 10.1111/lasr.12141 |
| OpenAlex | W2166372154 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 32 |
It is commonly believed among criminal justice scholars that sentencing guidelines increase uniformity in sentencing at the cost of fairness. They reason that guideline systems rarely take all relevant case characteristics into consideration, and as a result, impose sentences in particular cases that are biased relative to the ideal or best sentence. This bias effect is one of the primary theoretical and practical challenges faced by courts and sentencing commissions in the last 30 years, and provides one of the strongest arguments against mandatory sentencing guidelines. This article identifies a second effect of guidelines on fairness, which has not been sufficiently acknowledged by the scholarly literature: the variance effect increases the fairness of sentences directly by increasing uniformity. This article uses statistical simulation to examine the relationship between the variance effect and the bias effect. The results provide substantial evidence that the variance effect is comparatively large, and that it may often outweigh the negative effects of bias. Under these conditions, sentencing guidelines will both increase uniformity and increase fairness
Criminal justice · Criminology · Econometrics · Economic Justice · Economics · Guideline · Ideal (ethics · Political science · Sentence · Sentencing guidelines · Variance (accounting · Accounting · Computer Science · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Law · Law, Economics, and Judicial Systems · Psychology
Charging and Plea Bargaining Practices under Determinate Sentencing
Location, location, location
Comparative Review of Death Sentences
Reassessing and Redirecting Research on Race and Sentencing
Racial disparity in the wake of the Booker/Fanfan decision
Purposes and Functions of Sentencing
Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Sentencing Departures Across Modes of Conviction
Sentencing and Unwarranted Disparity
Court Communities Under Sentencing Guidelines
Sentencing in Context
Judging Judicial Discretion
Tools for Intuition about Sample Selection Bias and Its Correction
Sentencing under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines
Bayesian Posterior Predictive Checks for Complex Models
The Organizational Context of Criminal Sentencing
Law That Does Not Fit Society
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |