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Political Culture and Felony Sentencing: An Examination of Trial Courts in 300 Counties

University of South Alabama

Criminal sentencing is such a fundamental power of government that variations in its use can be linked to political culture. Using Daniel Elazar's typology of American political culture, three-hundred counties in 49 states were classified in terms of the prevailing political culture. This data was matched with sentencing data gathered by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. In the bivariate analysis traditionalistic political cultures administered harsher sentences; as for rates of incarceration, particularly in jails, moralistic political cultures incarcerated a higher percentage of individuals. In the multivariate model, many attributes closely related to political culture, such as conservatism, income distribution, and the over all crime rate, help to explain sentencing variations. However, political culture was significant only for larceny, and the results paralleled the bivariate analysis. This article concludes with a discussion of the advan tages and disadvantages of using political culture to study sentencing and the relevance of political culture to criminal justice policy.

Criminal Justice Policy Review, Vol. 8, No. 4, 343-364 (1997)
DOI: 10.1177/088740349700800402


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