MAY CONTAIN MARKUP

By Sheldon Glueck And Eleanor T. Glueck

The book provides a comprehensive analysis of the after-conduct of discharged offenders, focusing on the implications for reforming criminal justice:

● Causal Relations: It emphasizes the importance of understanding the multiple causal factors, both biological and environmental, that influence criminal behavior.

● Predictive Techniques: The document discusses the feasibility of using predictive tables to aid in sentencing and parole decisions.

● Reform Proposals: It suggests reforms for criminal justice based on scientific insights, such as re-designing correctional equipment to address causes rather than symptoms.

● Scientific Insights: Follow-up studies are highlighted as a means to gain scientific insights into the effectiveness of sentencing, treatment, and parole practices.

These key insights aim to shift the focus from punitive measures to a more rehabilitative approach that considers the complex interplay of factors contributing to criminal behavior.

Cambridge University. London 1945. Kraus Reprint Corporation New York 1966. 129p.

By Joe Russo, Samuel Peterson, Michael J. D. Vermeer, Dulani Woods, Brian A. Jackson

Racial and ethnic disparities are pervasive in the U.S. criminal justice system. These disparities often compound as an individual progresses through each stage of the justice system, beginning with police contact and continuing through prosecution and correctional control. Not surprisingly, people of color are overrepresented in the probation and parole population, yet relatively little attention has been paid to disparate treatment and outcomes at this stage.

Probation and parole staff and other system actors exercise considerable discretion in responding to technical violations. Technical violations are instances of noncompliance with the conditions of supervision — such as failing to report to the supervising officer, leaving the jurisdiction without permission, and testing positive on a drug test—that, while not criminal, can lead to severe consequences for justice-involved individuals. The spectrum of responses to technical violations can range from a warning all the way up to a recommendation to revoke supervision. Evidence suggests that technical violations are an important driver of incarceration.

The handling of technical violations may be influenced by a variety of factors, including officer judgment and jurisdictional policy, and there is evidence of racial and ethnic disparities in how they are handled. Ultimately, disparities in the processing of technical violations can exacerbate and perpetuate existing disparities in incarceration and undermine the legitimacy of the justice system. This report presents findings and recommendations from an expert panel that explored challenges and opportunities associated with reducing disparities at the technical violation decision point.

Key Findings

• The lack of evidence on the sources of disparities in community supervision contributes to a lack of known approaches for responding to them.

• The working relationship between an officer and a supervisee is critical to successful outcomes.

• A lack of diversity or cultural sensitivity among officers and supervisee perceptions of justice system illegitimacy can be barriers to forming quality relationships of trust.

• Research is needed to determine the impacts of (1) such factors as the working relationship between and officer and a supervisee, a lack of diversity or cultural sensitivity among officers, and supervisee perceptions of justice system illegitimacy on supervisee violation behaviors, (2) responses to these behaviors, and (3) disparities.

• Supervisees of color often have inequitable access to resources, which can be a barrier to successful completion of supervision and a contributing factor in disparate outcomes.

• Information management tools are needed to increase transparency about and accountability for disparities.

• Jurisdictions would benefit from developing data dashboards to help track, analyze, and display key metrics so that progress may be measured — and corrective actions taken as needed — at the officer and agency levels.

  Recommendations

• Develop best practices for the use of technology to eliminate barriers to compliance. Evaluate pros, cons, and impacts of these approaches on outcomes and disparities.

• Develop best practices and strategies to directly provide resources (e.g., food pantries, clothing, transit vouchers) to disadvantaged supervisees and/or coordinate with community resources to provide these services. Explore the feasibility of monetary assistance for sustenance and/or emergency support.

• Conduct research into supervisee perceptions of the justice system’s legitimacy along racial and ethnic lines and the impact of these perceptions on compliance and outcomes.

• Conduct research to determine whether the use of credible messengers improves relationships with supervisees and to examine the impact of this practice on supervision outcomes.

• Study jurisdictions that have reduced disparities to better understand the dynamics associated with successful outcomes and to develop an evidence base of effective strategies.

• Conduct research to determine the impacts of more-general system reforms (e.g., caps on probation sentences, reductions in the number of technical violations) on disparities in technical violation behaviors, responses, and outcomes.

• Develop management tools (e.g., dashboards) to track disparity metrics, in near real time, at the agency, supervisor, and officer levels to promote transparency and accountability and to identify patterns to be investigated and addressed (e.g., coachable moments for staff, policy or program review).

• Reinforce supervision practices in which staff actively engage in barrier-reduction strategies to "meet supervisees where they are" in terms of appropriate accommodations and service delivery that do not compromise public safety.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2023. 32p.

By Giada Girelli, Marcela Jofré, and Ajeng Larasati

Harm Reduction International (HRI) has monitored the use of the death penalty for drug offences worldwide since our first ground-breaking publication on this issue in 2007. This report, our 13th on the subject, continues our work of providing regular updates on legislative, policy and practical developments related to the use of capital punishment for drug offences, a practice which isa clear violation of international human rights and drug control standards.

This year marks the beginning of a new approach to our flagship publication. Every edition of this report will provide key data and updated categories, as well as high-level developments at the national and international level. A deeper analysis of developments and trends will be published in the 2024 edition and on alternate years. The methodology used for both reports remains the same. HRI opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception.

Harm Reduction International, 2024. 22p.

by Lucy Slade

Despite court fines being the most used sentence in the English and Welsh criminal justice system, it is rare that they feature in the discussion of justice reform engaged in by policymakers, academics and the third sector. To shine a light on this important, but under examined, area of our justice system, the Centre has undertaken a research project looking specifically what is the impact of their use. It is the first of its kind to look at what ought to happen— and what actually does. As part of this project, we have reviewed the literature of court fines and financial impositions in the criminal courts of England and Wales. This is accompanied by our report, which brings together the findings of our review of publicly available data, and qualitative interviews with people in low-incomes who have received a fine.

London: Centre for Justice Innovation, 2024. 11p.

by Lucy Slade and Stephen Whitehead

Almost everyone who is convicted in a court in England and Wales leaves with a bill to pay. Yet there is a striking gap in our knowledge on the most common sentencing outcome handed down by our courts: the court fine. A new report by the Centre for Justice Innovation published today (16 May 2024) seeks to address this knowledge gap. The report is called: “Where the hell am I going to get that money from?” The impact of court fines on people on low incomes.

The research, specifically conducted during this cost of living crisis, suggest that the impacts of getting a court fine are often highly disproportionate: while better off people experience only minor hardships, such as forgoing a holiday,for a significant number of those on the lowest incomes paying their court fine pushed them deeper towards unmanageable debt, destitution and significant levels of anxiety and mental anguish.

The research highlights that, contrary to the sentencing objectives of the court fine, the financial impact of fines and charges are not experienced equally by people with different levels of means. The research also found major gaps on the data collected, especially on the socio-economic status of those who are fined, meaning there is not a clear picture of who gets fined, who pays and who doesn’t (and why).

The research. The research is a comprehensive study based on a wide range of sources including interviews with 56 people with experience of fines who live on a low income; a literature review; analysis of public data on court fines; and of Citizens Advice data for clients who faced fine arrears between 2019 and 2023; and focus groups with 14 magistrates.

Findings from the data review:

• Men received the majority of fines (2,534,714, 64%), with women receiving 944,547 (24%), and a further 474,557 fines issued where sex was not recorded (12%). This is in keeping with the preponderance of men in the sentencing and the criminal justice caseload more generally.

• Women were proportionally more likely to receive fines than men (85% compared with 73%), in part, because they are more likely to commit the less serious offences, which result in a fine.

• Of the ten offences for which fines are most often issued, women receive the majority of fines for only one of these, TV licence evasion, where they represent three quarters of people whose gender is recorded.

Key findings

Almost everyone who is convicted of a crime in a court in England and Wales leaves with a bill to pay. Over 75% of people convicted each year are sentenced to a fine. Yet while many of the offences for which fines are given are deemed “minor,” the research suggests that, for people on low incomes, the impact of fines is anything but.

• A large number of the offences for which court fines are imposed are strongly linked to people’s pre-existing poverty, such as TV licence evasion.

• Many of the 56 interviewees reported that the financial burdens placed on them by the court had pushed them further into debt, with some pushed into destitution and into further offending to pay off the court fine.

• For some, the financial burdens took a severe toll on their mental and physical health, particularly where they faced prolonged payment periods in a never-ending cycle of payments.

• While fine amount

  • are meant to be determined by an individual’s financial circumstances, this system did not seem to work effectively in practice.

  • The imposition of other non means-tested financial charges alongside the fine, such as prosecution costs, often pushed the total amount owed to the court up from something affordable to an amount that felt impossible to pay in the time allowed.

  • Court fine enforcement action (which is subject to less regulation than commercial credit recovery), particularly the threat of bailiffs, added further financial and wellbeing strains, especially for those already struggling to make insufficient household budgets last.

  • Magistrates suggested that they often felt their hands were tied, leaving them to sentence people on low incomes to fines, the magistrates knew they could not pay.

  • Many interviewees felt that a fine was, in theory, an appropriate punishment for the offence they committed, but the confusing processes of the current system often meant that the total amount they eventually needed to pay was seen as excessive

London: The Centre for Justice Innovation, 2024, 41p.

By The Death Penalty Research Center

In January 2024, Ohio lawmakers announced plans to expand the use of the death penalty to permit executions with nitrogen gas, as Alabama had just done a week earlier. But at the same time the Attorney General and the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association are championing this legislation, a bipartisan group of state legislators has introduced a bill to abolish the death penalty based on “significant concerns on who is sentenced to death and how that sentence is carried out.” The competing narratives make it more important than ever for Ohioans to have a meaningful, accurate understanding of how capital punishment is being used, including whether the state has progressed beyond the mistakes of its past.

Early 19th century Ohio Black Laws imposed various legal restrictions on the rights and status of Black people in the state, not dissimilar to what would later become Black Codes in many Southern states. As constitutional historian Dr. Stephen Middleton explains, “Although the penal code of Ohio did not explicitly provide for a dual system for handling criminal cases, the Black Laws naturally made race an element in the criminal justice system.”

Ohio’s 1807 “Negro Evidence Law” prohibited Black people from testifying against white people in court, thus instituting a legal double standard. Articles in African American newspapers from the time reported numerous instances where white assailants attacked Black victims with impunity because there was no legal consequence without a white person who could testify on the victims’ behalf. The state also passed racial restrictions on juries in 1816 and 1831, officially barring Black people from jury service. These laws no longer exist, but modern studies reveal that jury discrimination continues.

One of the most significant ties between historical death sentencing and the modern use of capital punishment is the preferential valuing of white victims. Multiple Ohio-specific studies have concluded that when a case involves a white victim—especially a white female victim—defendants are more likely to receive a death sentence or be executed. A review of all aggravated murder charges in Hamilton County from January 1992 through August 2017 revealed that prosecutors are 4.54 times more likely to file charges with death penalty eligibility if there is at least one white victim, compared to similarly situated cases without white victims. A separate study of Ohio executions between 1976 and 2014 found that homicides involving white female victims are six times more likely to result in an execution than homicides involving Black male victims. DPIC independently analyzed race of victim data for all 465 death sentences in the state and found that 75% of death sentences were for cases with at least one white victim. For context, most murder victims in the state are Black (66%).

Black capital defendants have also faced instances of overt racism from jurors, prosecutors, and even their own attorneys. During closing arguments, the prosecuting attorney in Dwight Denson’s trial suggested that if jurors did not sentence him to death, they might as well rename Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood to “Jungle Land,” adding, “Leave it to Dwight Denson. Leave it to people like him.” An attorney for Malik Allah-U-Akbar (tried as Odraye Jones) reiterated false, racialized testimony from an expert witness during closing arguments: “I think it’s a quarter of the…urban [B]lack American youth come up with antisocial personality disorder…. This isn’t a situation you can treat. … You have to put him out of society until it runs its course.”

As the current debate over the use of the death penalty in Ohio continues, this report provides historical information, context, and data to inform the critical decisions that will follow.

Washington, DC: Death Penalty Information Center, 2024. 49p.

By Solitary Watch, American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana; Jesuit Social Research Institute/Loyola University New Orleans

The use of solitary confinement in the state of Louisiana has penetrated the broader public consciousness largely through the story of the Angola 3. Over the past decade, the harrowing saga of three African American men—all likely innocent of the prison murders that were used to justify confining them in solitary for up to 43 years—sparked media attention and public outcry as the ultimate expression of harsh, racist, Southern injustice. But there is another story to be told about solitary confinement in Louisiana. Like the story of the Angola 3, it is deeply rooted in the history of racial subjugation and captivity in the South, which begins with slavery and stretches through convict leasing and Jim Crow to the modern era of mass incarceration. However, it extends far beyond the lives of just three men. This is the story of a prison system where, on any given day, nearly one in five people is being held in isolation, placed there by prison staff, often for minor rule violations or “administrative” reasons. When it conducted a full count in the fall of 2017, the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections (LADOC) reported that 19 percent of the men in its state prisons—2,709 in all—had been in solitary confinement for more than two weeks. Many had been there for years or even decades. The Vera Institute of Justice, which released its own report on solitary confinement in Louisiana earlier this year, similarly found over 17 percent of the state’s prison population in solitary in 2016. These rates of solitary confinement use were more than double the next highest state’s, and approximately four times the national average. Given that Louisiana also has the second highest incarceration rate in the United States, which leads the world in both incarceration and solitary confinement use, it is clear that Louisiana holds the title of solitary confinement capital of the world. The state has this dishonorable distinction at a time when a growing body of evidence offers proof of the devastating psychological and social harms caused by prolonged solitary confinement, as well as its ineffectiveness as a tool to reduce prison violence. In 2015, when it revised its Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (known as the Mandela Rules), the United Nations acknowledged that solitary confinement of 15 days or more is cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment that often rises to the level of torture. Taken together, these facts indicate that the state of Louisiana is abusing and at times torturing thousands of its citizens for no legitimate purpose whatsoever. The numbers, however, still tell only part of the story. Just as Albert Woodfox’s memoir "Solitary" powerfully conveys what it is like to live for decades in conditions that are designed “to break people,” the words of individuals living in solitary confinement are vital to understanding the reality of what is happening today in Louisiana’s prisons. For this report, we collected information directly from those men and women. The bulk of the report is based on detailed responses from more than 700 lengthy surveys completed by individuals in solitary, whose names and identifying information have been changed to protect their safety and privacy. Their descriptions paint a grim picture of long stretches of time spent in small cells that are often windowless, filthy, and/or subject to extreme temperatures, where they are denied basic human needs such as adequate food and daily exercise, and subject to many forms of abuse as well as to unending idleness and loneliness, resulting in physical and mental deterioration. Since surveys were returned voluntarily, the results cannot be viewed as a comprehensive or representative sampling. Yet with more than 700 responses from all nine of the state’s prisons, which provided personal narratives as well as quantitative data,8 we believe our report complements, builds upon, and adds an even greater sense of urgency to previous recommendations for reform of solitary confinement in Louisiana, including those included in the recent report by the Vera Institute of Justice. At a moment when LADOC has, for the first time, shown willingness to reconsider and reduce its use of solitary confinement, the findings in this report offer vital insights—and illuminate a path toward the sweeping changes that must be made if Louisiana is to create a prison system that succeeds in both advancing public safety and preserving the human rights of incarcerated people. Major findings from this report include the following: • More than 77 percent of respondents said they had been held in solitary confinement for more than a year, and 30 percent said they had been in solitary for more than five years. LADOC has not collected data on duration of time in solitary. Nationally, less than 20 percent of individuals in solitary, on average, have been there for more than one year. The United Nations has called on countries to ban the use of solitary beyond two weeks. • Just over 56 percent of respondents were in Extended Lockdown, which is generally used as punishment for prison rule violations, and which has no maximum duration. This type of segregation violates UN prohibitions on both using isolation for punishment (as opposed to safety) and using it for indefinite periods. • African Americans were over-represented among respondents. This racial disparity is consistent with the Vera Institute’s report, which also found higher percentages of African Americans and lower percentages of whites in solitary than in the general prison population. • More than half of respondents believed their mental health had worsened during their time in solitary. Most others said it had stayed the same or weren’t sure. • Many described psychological problems consistent with research on the negative mental health effects of prolonged solitary confinement. These include anxiety, panic attacks, depression, hopelessness, sensitivity to light and sound, visual and auditory hallucinations, rage, paranoia, and difficulty interacting with others. Some expressed fear that the damage would be permanent, and they would “never be the same again.” • More than one-quarter of respondents reported engaging in self-harm, including cutting and head-banging, while in solitary, while less than 6 percent said they had done so while in general population. More than 66 percent said that they had witnessed others attempting to harm themselves frequently while in solitary. Of those who had harmed themselves, 4 percent said they received counseling in response, while more than 26 percent said they were punished for it. etc.....

New Orleans: Solitary Watch American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana Jesuit Social Research Institute/Loyola University New Orleans. 2019. 135p.

By Becky Feldman

Today, there are nearly two million people in American prisons and jails – a 500% increase over the last 50 years. In 2020, over 200,000 people in U.S. prisons were serving life sentences – more people than were in prison with any sentence in 1970. Nearly one-third of people serving life sentences are 55 or older, amounting to over 60,000 people. People of color, particularly Black Americans, are represented at a higher rate among those serving lengthy and extreme sentences than among the total prison population.

Harsh sentencing policies, such as lengthy mandatory minimum sentences, have produced an aging prison population in the United States. But research has established that lengthy sentences do not have a significant deterrent effect on crime and divert resources from effective public safety programs. Most criminal careers are under 10 years, and as people age, they usually desist from crime. Existing parole systems are ineffective at curtailing excessive sentences in most states, due to their highly discretionary nature, lack of due process and oversight, and lack of objective consideration standards. Consequently, legislators and the courts are looking to judicial review as a more effective means to reconsider an incarcerated person’s sentence in order to assess their fitness to reenter society. A judicial review mechanism also provides the opportunity to evaluate whether sentences imposed decades ago remain just under current sentencing policies and public sentiment.

Second Look Defined

Legislation authorizing judges to review sentences after a person has served a lengthy period of time has been referred to as a second-look law and more colloquially as “sentence review.”

This report presents the evolution of the second look movement, which started with ensuring compliance with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in Graham v. Florida (2010) and Miller v. Alabama (2012) on the constitutionality of juvenile life without parole (“JLWOP”) sentences. This reform has more recently expanded to other types of sentences and populations, such as other excessive sentences imposed on youth, and emerging adults sentenced to life without parole (“LWOP”). Currently, legislatures in 12 states, the District of Columbia, and the federal government have enacted a second look judicial review beyond opportunities provided to those with JLWOP sentences, and courts in at least 15 states determined that other lengthy sentences such as LWOP or term-of-years sentences were unconstitutional under Graham or Miller.

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2024. 42p.

By Judith A. Ryder

The rate of female incarceration continues to surge, resulting in over 714,000 women currently being held behind bars worldwide. Females generally enter carceral facilities with low educational profiles, and educational programming inside is rarely a high priority. Access to education is a proven contributor to women’s social and economic empowerment and can minimise some of the obstacles they encounter after being released from custody. Support for the intellectual potential of incarcerated female ‘students’ can address intersecting inequalities that impede access to social protection, public services and sustainable infrastructure. Policymakers, academics and activists concerned with gender equality must begin by focusing on academic and vocational program development for female prisoners, built through strong community partnerships, and inclusive of trauma informed supports.

International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 9(1), pp. 139-149. 2020

By Pilar Larroulet, Catalina Droppelm, Paloma Del Villar, et al.

The last decades’ increase in female incarceration has translated into an increasing number of women being released from prison. Understanding their characteristics and criminal trajectories can enlighten us regarding the different needs of women upon re-entering society after incarceration. Drawing on data from the Reinserción, Desistimiento y Reincidencia en Mujeres Privadas de Libertad en Chile study, this article identifies different profiles among a cohort of 225 women who were released from prison in Santiago, Chile, and demonstrates that significant heterogeneity exists among them in terms of their criminal trajectories and the intervention needs to support their transition out of prison.

International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 9(1), pp. 112-125. 2020.

By Paul McGorrery and Paul Schollum

When sentencing someone for criminal offending, courts can select from a number of possible sentencing orders, such as imprisonment, a drug and alcohol treatment order, a community correction order (CCO), a fine, an adjourned undertaking, or a dismissal with or without conviction. Courts can also often impose a combination of these sentencing orders if doing so would be appropriate in the circumstances of the case. The focus of this report is a particular combination of sentencing orders imposed in the same case: imprisonment with a CCO (a combined order). A CCO is a sentencing order that an offender serves in the community while subject to various mandatory conditions as well as at least one optional condition. When courts impose a combined order, the offender commences their CCO on release from prison. Aim and research questions The aim of this report is to present a statistical profile of combined orders of imprisonment with a CCO in the 9 calendar years from 2012 to 2020.

Melbourne: Sentencing Advisory Council (VIC), 2023. 28p.

By Anna Chalton, Dugan Dallimore and Paul McGorrery

Threat Offences in Victoria examines sentencing outcomes from 2015 to 2019 for five types of threat offences: threat to kill, threat to inflict serious injury, threat to destroy or damage property, threat to commit a sexual offence and threat to assault an emergency worker. It considers the offences co-sentenced alongside threat offences and the prior and subsequent offending rates for people sentenced for threat offending.

Melbourne: Sentencing Advisory Council (VIC), 2021. 76p.

By Anna Chalton, Paul McGorrery, Zsombor Bathy, Dugan Dallimore, Paul Schollum and Octavian Simu

This report provides an in-depth analysis of how Victorian courts sentence stalking offences contrary to section 21A of the Crimes Act 1958 (Vic). It considers the demographics of stalkers, the relationship between stalking offenders and victims, the sorts of stalking behaviours sentenced in Victorian courts and the sentencing outcomes for stalking offences. It also explores the link between stalking and family violence, the rate of reoffending among stalking offenders and the prevalence of stalking offences in rural and regional Victoria

Melbourne: Sentencing Advisory Council (VIC), 2022. 104p.

By Paul McGorrery and Zsombor Bathy

This report reviews 20 years of data in our Sentencing Snapshots to identify changes in sentencing practices in the higher courts for a select number of offences:

• murder, manslaughter and culpable driving causing death

• various cause injury offences

• drug trafficking and cultivation offences

• rape, incest and a number of child sex offences.

It outlines offender numbers, imprisonment rates, imprisonment lengths and non-parole periods for each offence.

Melbourne: Sentencing Advisory Council (VIC), 2022. 24p.

By Paul McGorrery and Zsombor Bathy

An aggregate prison sentence involves a court imposing a single prison sentence on multiple criminal offences rather than a separate prison sentence on each offence. Table 1 illustrates the difference between aggregate and non-aggregate prison sentences. In the first example, the offender has received a single aggregate prison sentence of two years for aggravated burglary and theft. And in the second example, the offender has received separate non-aggregate prison sentences for the same two offences. The end result in both examples is identical – a two-year total sentence – but the method of arriving at that total sentence differs.

There are a number of advantages to aggregate sentencing. It can significantly improve court efficiency, especially in cases with a large number of charges. It can avoid the impression of ‘artificiality’ in the sentencing process, particularly if there is an impression that the court has determined the most appropriate total effective sentence that is proportionate to the overall offending, but then has adjusted the various charge-level sentences and cumulation orders to achieve that result. It can also reduce calculation errors that may occur when charge-level sentences are made wholly or partly cumulative or concurrent, again especially in cases with a large number of charges. Aggregate sentencing can also, however, reduce transparency in sentencing, limit courts’ ability to assess current sentencing practices and, as this paper shows, result in some offences receiving sentences in excess of their maximum penalty. There has, to date, been no examination of Victorian courts’ use of aggregate prison sentences since their introduction in 1997. The aims of this paper are to utilise court data to review trends in the use of aggregate prison sentences in Victoria, and to then consider issues arising from their use.

Melbourne: Advisory Sentencing Council (VIC), 2023. 28p.

By Paul McGorrery and Felicity Stewart

Adjourned undertakings perform a critical role in the Victorian criminal justice system. They are a low-end community order that requires the offender to be of good behaviour for a certain period of time, and they may also require the offender to comply with certain additional conditions, such as making a charitable donation or participating in a rehabilitation program. They are primarily designed to provide a response to less serious offending, to first-time offenders, to vulnerable offenders or even to serious offending if there are extraordinary circumstances. Because of this broad scope, adjourned undertakings are highly prevalent. In 2019 alone, there were over 17,000 adjourned undertakings imposed, mostly in the Magistrates’ Court, making up 18% of all sentencing outcomes in adult courts that year. Yet despite the importance and prevalence of adjourned undertakings, this project has been the first detailed examination of their use since their introduction in 1985. In that context, this report follows the consultation paper we published in August 2022 and presents 26 recommendations for reforms to adjourned undertakings and related orders. Those recommendations are a product of extensive data analysis, legal research and consultation over the last two years. Our overarching aim in making those recommendations is to refine a sentencing order that is already held in high regard by those who work in Victoria’s criminal justice system. Adjourned undertakings are a highly flexible and useful order, and we do not want to fix what isn’t broken or cause unintended consequences. With that in mind, we have grouped our recommendations according to certain themes.

Melbourne: The Sentencing Advisory Council (VIC), 2023. 102p.

By Felicity Stewart, Paul McGorrery

Deferring (or postponing) sentencing for a short time, up to 12 months, is one of the ways that courts can achieve the various purposes of sentencing in Victoria (for example, community protection and rehabilitation) and ensure that judicial officers have all the information they need in deciding an appropriate sentence in a case.

Introduced in the adult criminal jurisdiction in 2002, sentence deferral has evolved into a vital, but potentially under-utilised, part of the Victorian sentencing landscape. Over the last two years, those who work in the criminal justice system have told us that sentence deferral can be a highly effective therapeutic tool. Sentence deferral can support complex and vulnerable offenders in their rehabilitation and can protect the community in the long-term by allowing offenders to participate in programs that reduce their risk of reoffending. In some cases, a person’s progress during the deferral period can make the difference between receiving a prison sentence and receiving a community order.

In this report, the Victorian Sentencing Advisory Council makes 10 recommendations for reform that have been informed by their research, data analysis and consultation. In developing these recommendations, they were mindful not to ‘fix what isn’t broken’, in particular, not to disrupt the aspects of sentence deferral that make it work well, especially its flexibility and lack of formality. The Council has only made recommendations where there was strong evidence for change.

Melbourne: The Sentencing Advisory Council, 2024. 115p.

By Benjamin van Rooij, Malouke Esra Kuiper, and Alexis Piquero

Legal punishment, at least in part, serves a behavioral function to reduce and prevent offending behavior. The present paper offers an integrated review of the diverse mechanisms through which punishment may affect such behavior. It moves beyond a legal view that focuses on just three such mechanisms (deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation), to also include other socializing, delegitimizing, compliance obstructing, and offence adapting mechanisms in how punishment may influence offending. The paper assesses the quality of existing empirical knowledge about the different effects of punishment and the conditions under which these effects exist. It concludes that punishment has at least thirteen different influences on crime prevention, five positive and eight negative. It shows that such effects are conditional, depending on the offender, offence, punishment, and jurisdiction. Furthermore, it shows that the effects vary in their directness, proximity, onset and longevity. It concludes that our current empirical understanding does not match the complex reality of how punishment comes to shape crime. In light of this, the paper develops a research agenda on the integrated effects of punishment moving beyond limited causal mechanisms to embrace the fuller complexity of how sanctions shape human conduct by adopting a complexity science approach.

UC Irvine School of Law Research Paper Forthcoming.Amsterdam Law School Research Paper No. 2024-13. Center for Law & Behavior Research Paper No. 2024-01

By Vishal Kamat, Samuel Norris and Matthew Pecenco

The criminal justice system affects millions of Americans through criminal convictions and incarceration. In this paper, we introduce a new method for credibly estimating the effects of both conviction and incarceration using randomly assigned judges as instruments for treatment. Misdemeanor convictions, especially for defendants with a shorter criminal record, cause an increase in the number of new offenses committed over the following five years. Incarceration on more serious felony charges, in contrast, reduces recidivism during the period of incapacitation, but has no effect after release. Our method allows the researcher to isolate specific treatment effects of interest as well as estimate the effect of broader policies; we find that courts could reduce crime by dismissing marginal charges against defendants accused of misdemeanors, with larger reductions among first-time defendants and those facing more serious charges.

Written March 2024. SSRN.

Sandra Babcock, Nathalie Greenfield and Kathryn Adamson

This article presents a comprehensive study of 48 persons sentenced to death between 1990 and 2023 who presented as women at the time of their trials. Our research is the first of its kind to conduct a holistic and intersectional analysis of the factors driving women’s death sentences. It reveals commonalities across women’s cases, delving into their experiences of motherhood, gender-based violence and prior involvement with the criminal legal system. We also explore the nature of the women’s crimes of conviction, including the role of male co-defendants and the State’s use of aggravating factors. Finally, we reveal for the first time the extent to which capital prosecutions are dominated by men—including judges, elected District Attorneys, defense attorneys, and juror forepersons—and explain why gender matters in determining who lives and who dies.

We present our data against the backdrop of prevalent theories that seek to explain both the rarity of women’s executions and the reasons why certain women are singled out for the harshest punishment provided by law. We explain why those frameworks are inadequate to understand the role that systemic gender bias plays in women’s capital prosecutions. We conclude by arguing for more nuanced research that embraces the complexities in women’s capital cases and accounts for the presence of systemic and intersectional discrimination.

Cardozo Law Review, Forthcoming (Written April, 2024}.