Reexamining Focal Concerns Theory: How Much Risk Should Be Considered as Part of Sentencing Decisions?

• In Event: The Roles of Risk and Recidivism in Sentencing

Abstract

Steffensmeier, Ulmer and Kramer’s focal concerns doctrine have been widely utilized and applied to explain sentencing disparity across types of crime. Most studies focus on two concerns, that blameworthiness and culpability is associated with legal criteria and the practically of both individual (e.g., offender’s characteristics) and organization factors (e.g., courtroom culture, institution resources). Yet, the other concern, how judges assess individual risk within sentencing discretion is often overlooked by legal studies and little is known about modeling strategies used to examine judicial discretionary risk within focal concern framework. The current study fills this research gap and examined the three concerns collectively through a Judicial Risk x Sentence model. The results supported judicial focal concerns explanations on sentence outcomes. Particularly, this study demonstrated that risk was a significant, influential factor in judicially-imposed sentence lengths along with legal- and extra-legal factors and was also a key predictor of sentence disparity.

Author

• Ming-Li Hsieh, University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire