Sentencing Guidelines, Tis Legislation, and Bargaining Power

35 Pages Posted: 2 Jul 2006

See all articles by Dhammika Dharmapala

Dhammika Dharmapala

UC Berkeley School of Law; CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute); European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)

Nuno Garoupa

George Mason University - Antonin Scalia Law School

Joanna Shepherd

Emory University School of Law

Date Written: July 2006

Abstract

This paper analyzes the influence of political and institutional factors on the enactment of sentencing guidelines and truth-in-sentencing legislation by US states. First, we develop a model of strategic interaction among the judiciary, parole boards and state legislators, to analyze the consequences of these laws for the relative bargaining power of the actors. The model predicts that the enactment of these laws is more likely the greater the divergence in preferences between the legislature and the other actors. We test this hypothesis using a semiparametric proportional hazard model. Consistent with our hypothesis, the enactment of both of these types of legislation is more likely in states that have had a longer history of divided government (in particular, with Republican governors and Democratic legislatures; however, divided government with Democratic governors does not have a significant effect). These results indicate that either conservative judges and parole boards are less likely to oppose these laws, or that legislatures are more interested in constraining conservative judges and parole boards. Our results also suggest that legislatures are more likely to constrain the judiciary by enacting sentencing guidelines when the guidelines will have a substantial influence on incarceration lengths because discretionary parole has either been abolished or restricted. Truth-in-sentencing laws, which severely limit early release from prison, are also more likely to be passed when states have already abolished discretionary parole.

Keywords: criminal law, judges, sentencing guidelines

JEL Classification: K00, K14, C7, C14

Suggested Citation

Dharmapala, Dhammika and Garoupa, Nuno and Shepherd, Joanna, Sentencing Guidelines, Tis Legislation, and Bargaining Power (July 2006). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=912690 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.912690

Dhammika Dharmapala

UC Berkeley School of Law ( email )

302 JSP
2240 Piedmont Ave
Berkeley, CA 94720
United States

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute) ( email )

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, DE-81679
Germany

European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) ( email )

c/o the Royal Academies of Belgium
Rue Ducale 1 Hertogsstraat
1000 Brussels
Belgium

Nuno Garoupa

George Mason University - Antonin Scalia Law School ( email )

3301 Fairfax Drive
Arlington, VA 22201
United States

Joanna Shepherd (Contact Author)

Emory University School of Law ( email )

1301 Clifton Road
Atlanta, GA 30322
United States
404-727-8957 (Phone)

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