This dissertation contributes to an emerging literature in criminology on sentencing and contextual effects, first by unpacking the direct and conditioning effects of social context on sentencing decisions, and then by examining whether changes in social context, as well as state-level social context, influence sentencing. To this end, I draw on the minority threat perspective to develop hypotheses about contextual effects. Specifically, I use the minority threat perspective to develop hypotheses about how different dimensions of county-level minority threat affect courtroom decision-making differently, as well as interactively with individual offenders' race and ethnicity. I also use this perspective to develop hypotheses about the ways in which changes in social context may affect sentencing decisions. In theorizing how changes may affect sentencing severity, I also draw on the social threat perspective. Finally, I examine state-level social context and its effect, directly and interactively with county-level social context and individual offenders' race and ethnicity, on sentencing severity. Data for this dissertation come from the State Court Processing Statistics for 1998, 2000, and 2002, which include 17,440 convicted felons in 60 urban counties across 23 states. The data are unique in that they include cases from a range of counties and states, offer extensive information on the processing of defendants, provide important demographic informationâespecially race and ethnicityâand information about defendants' previous contact with the criminal justice system. In addition, because the counties sampled represent courts that process a large proportion of arrestees in the U.S., findings from this dissertation should have a greater generalizability than prior studies that only focus on one state. To develop various measures of social context at county and state levels, I extract data from the U.S. Census of Bureau, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and the National Center for State Courts. Given the nature of the research questions and data, I use multilevel modeling techniques to test the hypotheses. Ultimately, the goal of this dissertation is to contribute to criminological and criminal justice research, as well as to policy discussions, by examining whether the influence of social context on criminal sentencing is more nuanced than what prior research has established and by advancing the development of theoretical accounts of sentencing. The findings highlight the significance of social contextâracial and ethnic context in particularâand its nuanced effect on sentencing severity. I conclude this dissertation by discussing the implications of the findings for theory, research, and policy. I also discuss future lines of research that I intend to pursue. / A Dissertation Submitted to the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice in
Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2008. / April 1, 2008. / Minority Thtreat, Social Context, Sentencing, Race and Ethnicity / Includes bibliographical references. / Daniel P. Mears, Professor Directing Dissertation; Xufeng Niu, Outside Committee Member; Carter Hay, Committee Member; Michael D. Reisig, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_175808 |
| Contributors | Wang, Xia, 1979- (authoraut), Mears, Daniel P. (professor directing dissertation), Niu, Xufeng (outside committee member), Hay, Carter (committee member), Reisig, Michael D. (committee member), College of Criminology and Criminal Justice (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
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