Examining the Impact of Jail Sanctions on Recidivism for Domestic Violence Probationers.

There has been a growth of domestic violence courts aimed at increasing offender accountability and victim safety. Although research has examined the effectiveness of these courts compared to typical court processing on recidivism, little is known about the mechanism of judicial accountability. Specifically, judicial review hearings, in which judges have discretion on whether and how to sanction for noncompliance, are common in these courts.

Inter-judicial differences in approaching technical violations: Examining the interaction of judge and compliance issue for domestic violence probationers.

Few studies have examined differences in the sentencing practices of judges within a jurisdiction. Even more limited is research examining differences across judges in domestic violence courts despite the large amount of discretion afforded to judges in these courts in sanctioning decisions. The current study utilized data from a large urban county court to determine whether significant differences existed across judges in allocating a jail sanction in the domestic violence court.

Sexual Violence Among Male Inmates.

Inmate misconduct has been a widely studied topic for many decades. General studies of misconduct have found that there are certain factors that contribute to misconduct, including age, gender, sentence length, and facility type. Few studies, however, have examined the factors predicting sexual offenses in a prison conduct.

Alcohol outlets, social disorganization, and robberies: accounting for neighborhood characteristics and alcohol outlet types.

We estimated spatially lagged regression and spatial regime models to determine if the variation in total, on-premise, and off-premise alcohol outlet(1) density is related to robbery density, while controlling for direct and moderating effects of social disorganization.(2) Results suggest that the relationship between alcohol outlet density and robbery density is sensitive to the measurement of social disorganization levels. Total alcohol outlet density and off-premise alcohol outlet density were significantly associated with robbery density when social disorganization variables were included separately in the models.

The effects of gender, family status, and race on sentencing decisions.

This study sought to determine the effects of family role, gender, and race on judges' sentencing decisions. To assess these effects, factorial surveys were sent to 360 Court of Common Plea judges who presided over criminal court cases in the state. Survey administration resulted in a 51% response rate.