The Bureaucratic Organization of Prosecutors' Offices across the United States

• In Event: 40461 - Section on Sociology of Law Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 2: Judge and Prosecutorial Decision Making

Abstract

Every year, more than 10 million people are arrested in the United States, with as many as 7 million eventually convicted of a crime. Prosecutors choose whether to try cases and have the power to decline cases for prosecution, making them a key actor in the adjudication process. However, prosecutors are embedded within district offices across all 50 states, each imbued with unique attributes and characteristics. The bureaucratic structures, social and economic resources, and extra-office networks of prosecutors’ offices may be consequential for the processing of cases. Thus, the prosecutor’s office is a key socio-legal site in which the adjudication of criminal defendants unfolds. Despite the theoretical and practical salience of prosecutors’ offices, much of the extant research on prosecutors focuses on individual prosecutors, prosecutorial teams, or courtroom working groups. Drawing on Weberian and neo-Weberian theory on bureaucracy and administration, I extend research in the sociology of law and sociology of organizations and institutions to explore the bureaucratic organization of prosecutors’ offices and the impacts of bureaucratic indicators for criminal sentencing outcomes. I use Bureau of Justice Statistics and U.S. Census data (the National Survey of Prosecutors, State Court Processing Statistics, and U.S. Decennial Census and American Community Survey data) to operationalize six indicators of bureaucratic organization in prosecutors’ offices. I show how these bureaucratic organization indicators ought to be measured across prosecutors’ offices. I then model the effects of these indicators on charging outcomes for urban criminal cases in the early 2000’s. I find that aspects of bureaucratic organization enhance or reduce the likelihood that a case is declined for prosecution, diverted to specialty courts, or is eventually convicted and sentenced to prison. Finally, I discuss the Implications for the study of prosecutors, criminal justice administration, and public administration writ large.

Author

• Lesley Erin Schneider, North Carolina State University