The sociology of sentencing: Reconceptualizing decisionmaking processes and outcomes

Research on juvenile and adult sentencing has been characterized by theoret ical, methodological, and empirical limitations that preclude adequate desc ription, prediction, or assessment of decisionmaking processes and outcomes . Five limitations are prominent: emphasis on atheoretical, empirical attem pts, generally unsuccessful, to increase predictive accuracy: limited conce ptualizations of dependent variables (e.g., incarceration versus nonincarce ration); overreliance on individual, offender-level data with minimal refer ence to victims, practitioners, or contextual factors; failure to incorpora te analytically multiple research methods; and inattention to intended and unintended uses and effects of sentencing. These limitations can be highlig hted by focusing on a context-juvenile justice-in which the goals of senten cing are varied, conflicting, and, due to recent reforms, changing. Using i nterview and survey data, the present research examines juvenile sentencing reform in Texas to highlight these limitations and to outline an analytica l framework for improved description, modeling, and assessment of sentencin g.