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.
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.
