Routledge Handbook on Punishment Decisions: Locations of Disparity (The ASC Division on Corrections & Sentencing Handbook Series)

Handbook on Punishment Decisions: Locations of Disparity provides a comprehensive assessment of the current knowledge on sites of disparity in punishment decision-making. This collection of essays and reports of original research defines disparity broadly to include the intersection of race/ethnicity, gender, age, citizenship/immigration status, and socioeconomic status, and it examines dimensions such as how pretrial or guilty plea processes shape exposure to punishment, how different types of sentencing decisions and/or policy structures (sentencing guidelines, mandatory minimums, risk assessment tools) might shape and condition disparity, and how post-sentencing decisions involving probation and parole contribute to inequalities. The sixteen contributions pull together what we know and what we don’t about punishment decision-making and plow new ground for further advances in the field. The ASC Division on Corrections & Sentencing Handbook Series publishes volumes on topics ranging from violence risk assessment to specialty courts for drug users, veterans, or people with mental illness. Each thematic volume focuses on a single topical issue that intersects with corrections and sentencing research. Review 'The nature of justice requires that systematic disparities in the delivery of punishment should be identified and condemned. This important new Handbook goes a crucial step further by also locating the sources of disparity in the hidden processes and policies of criminal justice agents and the legal system. This is essential reading for anyone concerned with making justice more just.' – Shadd Maruna, Professor of Criminology, University of Manchester 'Jeffery Ulmer, leading scholar of disparities in punishment decisions, their structural, institutional, and policy contexts, joined forces with the excellent Mindy Bradley to bring together an exceptional group of contributors to this volume. Its publication is a defining moment. It will have consequences for the future of this field.' – Joachim J. Savelsberg, Professor of Sociology and Law, University of Minnesota About the Author Jeffery T. Ulmer is Professor of Sociology and Criminology and Associate Department Head of the Department of Sociology and Criminology at Pennsylvania State University. He received his Ph.D. and M.A. in Sociology from Pennsylvania State University. His interests include courts and criminal sentencing, racial inequalities in criminal punishment, structural disadvantage and violence, religion and crime, symbolic interactionism, organizations, and the integration of qualitative and quantitative methods. He is the author or co-author of several books and over 65 articles and book chapters. He received the Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Society of Criminology (ASC) Division on Corrections and Sentencing in 2012, and in 2006 (with Darrell Steffensmeier) won ASC’s Michael Hindelang Award for Outstanding Book for Confessions of a Dying Thief: Understanding Criminal Careers and Illegal Enterprise. Mindy S. Bradley is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Arkansas. Her areas of research include: courts and sentencing, corrections, intersections of mental/behavioral health and justice systems, and deviance. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology and M.A. in Crime, Law, and Justice from Pennsylvania State University, and her B.S. in Criminal Justice from the University of West Georgia. She was a National Institute of Mental Health Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is the author of Naked Lives: Inside the Worlds of Exotic Dance (SUNY Press) and co-editor (with Brent Teasdale) of Preventing Crime and Violence (Springer), the second volume of the Advances in Prevention Science series.