A Geographic Perspective on Jurisdictional Consistency in Sentencing Outcomes

• In Event: Factors Influencing Sentencing Decisions

Abstract

Consistency in sentencing has long been regarded a fundamental principle of justice. Yet despite its universal importance, the advancement of research in this area has been hindered by methodological challenges. This study identifies a new concern with strategies used to measure jurisdictional consistency in sentencing outcomes. Direct measures commonly used in conditional comparisons, exact matching strategies, and experimental simulations, fail to account for sentencing patterns developed at the local level. The objective of this study is to assess the utility of applying a geographic perspective – one concerned with proportionate comparisons between jurisdictions. This is achieved by proposing a variant of a common metric employed in geographic research: the location quotient. Employing adult criminal court data with a conditional comparative design, a series of analyses use the new strategy to compare custodial sentence outcomes for three high-volume offense types across provincial/territorial jurisdictions in Canada (2014-15). The new technique was found to identify patterns of both consistency and inconsistency that would otherwise have gone undetected. Importantly, the strategy is not limited to sentencing analysis. The technique should prove useful for future studies in a variety of areas of criminological inquiry.

Authors

• Andrew Reid, Simon Fraser University

• David MacAlister, Simon Fraser University