SOCIAL WORLDS OF SENTENCING: COURT COMMUNITIES UNDER SENTENCING GUIDELINES by Jeffery T. Ulmer. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997. 233pp. Paper $17.95. ISBN: 0-7914-3498-2

Reviewed by John Paul Ryan, Director of School Programs, American Bar Association. Email: jryan3@staff.abanet.org.
 

Much of the empirical literature on sentencing, especially that which explores the intersections of politics and sentencing, appeared in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s (see e.g., Blumberg, 1967; Neubauer, 1974; Eisenstein and Jacob, 1978; Nardulli Eisenstein, and., Flemming 1988; and Eisenstein, Flemming, and, Nardulli 1988, etc). Since these books were written, the political landscape of sentencing in the United States has changed substantially. Perhaps the most notable of a series of changes that also includes determinate sentencing, mandatory minimum sentences, and a general "get-tough" posture fostered by escalating crime rates is the advent of sentencing guidelines. The federal courts and a dozen or more states have adopted sentencing guidelines, which are designed to provide consistency and fairness across charges, cases, defendants, and jurisdictions.

Jeffery Ulmer's SOCIAL WORLDS OF SENTENCING explores sentencing in the aftermath of the imposition of sentencing guidelines, by studying one state -- Pennsylvania -- that adopted guidelines in the early 1980s. Ulmer situates his study as an effort to understand "courtroom workgroups" and court communities, initially conceptualized in the research noted above, in the shadow of sentencing guidelines. Do the guidelines truly constrain judges and other key actors in sentencing? Is the locus of key decision making displaced -- e.g., to charge bargaining, to avoid the constraints of guidelines? How are the guidelines interpreted in communities characterized by different courtroom infrastructures, social values, and demographics?

These and related questions form the basis of Ulmer's empirical study of sentencing in Pennsylvania from 1985-91. He uses quantitative data to explore these propositions both on a statewide level and in three counties, where he also draws upon qualitative data from interviews with key court actors. The case-based data are very extensive -- more than 160,000 cases across a six-year time frame. Collected by the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing, these data include case characteristics (type of offense, mode of conviction, etc.), case outcomes, and defendant-related variables that include legally-relevant factors such as prior record and extralegal factors such as race and gender. Ulmer supplements these data with county-level data (such as the proportion of urban and African-American residents, political party registration, etc.) designed to assess, in the aggregate, the impact of the community culture on sentencing.

By using sophisticated multivariate methods of statistical analysis (logit, searches for interaction effects, etc.), Ulmer finds that the severity of the offense and the defendant's prior record are, by far, the two most powerful determinants of the decision whether to incarcerate or not, as well as the length of the jail/prison sentence imposed. In one respect, there could be almost no other finding, since the state sentencing guidelines themselves use offense severity and prior record, in combination, to determine the ranges of recommended sentence for aggravated, mitigated, and standard situations. Judges may sentence outside (above or below) the range, but they must justify their deviations in writing, which can then be appealed by prosecutor or defense attorney. What is perhaps more notable, if not altogether surprising, is the continued influence of extra-legal factors on sentencing, despite the presence of guidelines. In particular, jury trial dispositions result in longer sentences (by more than one year), when all other factors are held constant. Gender and race also influence the sentencing decisions: Ulmer finds that males and blacks were about 50% more likely, than women and whites, to be incarcerated, and for longer terms (3-6 months, on average).

The findings from multivariate analyses of cases for the three counties of special focus -- metropolitan, [affluent] suburban, and rural -- are largely similar to the statewide analysis, and as a result their presentation is unnecessarily repetitive. However, interviews with judges, prosecutors, defense counsel, and probation officers in these three counties do provide some context and texture for the quantitative findings.

For example, with respect to the troubling finding that race still matters in the adjudication of criminal cases, even as recently as the early 1990s, across Pennsylvania and in at least two of three counties of special focus (the rural county had a statistically small number of blacks), the interviews provide some explanations. Black and white cocaine offenders were treated differently, as a result of different judicial and prosecutorial attitudes toward the use and sale of crack versus powder cocaine. Assessment of defendants' character and rehabilitation potential (e.g., as evidenced by education, employment status, family stability, etc.) often favored white defendants at sentencing hearings, especially when the decision was whether to incarcerate or grant probation. These differences of treatment, though justified in the minds of some judges and other court actors, are nevertheless disquieting, as Ulmer himself points out, especially when accompanied by a "we-they" mentality characteristic of a mostly (or all) white legal system confronting African-American defendants.

Ulmer's book is somewhat disappointing in its treatment of sentencing guidelines and their impact. Of course, this is not a longitudinal study, so there is no way to assess the actual impact of the guidelines on sentencing behaviors or values. And given that the guidelines were implemented many years before the study, the recall of pre-guidelines times by courthouse interviewees would have been unreliable, if not impossible. Ulmer finds that the guidelines helped to establish "going rates" (norms for particular sentences) in the metropolitan county, in the absence of stable courtroom workgroups having the authority or inclination to establish their own rates. Conversely, the guidelines were peripheral to the highly consensual, workgroup-produced "going rates" in the suburban county. In the rural county the guidelines offered a more lenient sentencing standard than what prosecutors, at least, seemed to prefer. These important insights are, however, scattered throughout the analysis. As a result, some scholars and public policymakers with special interests in sentencing guidelines may be disappointed to see that the guidelines appear to operate truly in the "shadows," both for the majority of the courtroom actors and for Ulmer's interpretive lens.

The book's strengths are at times also its weaknesses. First, Ulmer's multivariate analyses of sentencing outcomes are statistically sound, utilizing the most advanced techniques, such as logit analysis. Yet his presentation and explanations are often unnecessarily lengthy and complex, especially for readers without strong statistical understanding. Second, many interviews were conducted with key courthouse actors (judges, lawyers, probation officers, etc.) in the three communities of focus, but again Ulmer's analysis and presentation of these qualitative data are sometimes unfulfilling. Individual and isolated good points are often made using the interviews (e.g., the distinction between negotiated and open pleas), but "stories" are slow to unfold, resulting in a minimal feel for the culture of the courthouse or larger community. Finally, Ulmer works hard to ground his study in the courtroom workgroup literature, but at the same time his efforts fail to significantly increase our understanding of the core concepts identified by Eisenstein, Jacob, Nardulli and others. Ulmer also draws upon the work of sociologists, such as Anselm Strauss and Howard Becker, in extending variants of organization theory to the courthouse, but this theoretical framework only weakly illuminates his data. In sum, SOCIAL WORLDS OF SENTENCING is a thorough, indeed meticulous piece of research that largely replicates and reconfirms earlier empirical studies. Nevertheless, to the extent that extra-legal factors such as race remain potent, Ulmer's findings are a sober reminder of the limits of legal reform.
 

Blumberg, Abraham. 1967. CRIMINAL JUSTICE. Chicago: Quadrangle Press.

Eisenstein, James, Roy Flemming, and Peter Nardulli. 1988. THE CONTOURS OF JUSTICE: COMMUNITIES AND THEIR COURTS. Boston: Little Brown.

Eisenstein, James, and Herbert Jacob. 1977. FELONY JUSTICE: AN ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS OF CRIMINAL COURTS. Boston: Little Brown.

Nardulli, Peter, James Eisenstein, and Roy Flemming. 1988. THE TENOR OF JUSTICE: CRIMINAL COURTS AND THE GUILTY PLEA PROCESS. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

Neubauer, David W. 1974. CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN MIDDLE AMERICA. Morristown, N.J.