The Impact of “Strikes” in Sentencing Decisions: Punishment for Only Some Habitual Offenders
Abstract
Sentencing research has continued to address how legal and extralegal variables influence sentencing decisions. However, little attention has been given to how the implementation of habitual offender laws has influenced the sentencing of repeat, violent offenders. In this study, criminal history record and prior strike offenses are used to measure sentence length of convicted felony offenders in Washington State. By using both additive and interactive models, findings show that the influence of criminal history record and prior strikes on sentencing decisions is indirectly related to offense type (i.e., person, property, sex, and drug cases). Findings shed light on the various measures of prior record and their role in sentencing research.
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Some other studies of state court sentencing found that Native Americans were not punished significantly differently from whites.
“Some other studies of state court sentencing (Engen & Gainey 2000, Rodriguez 2003) included but did not focus on Native Americans in their analyses and found that Native Americans were not punished significantly differently from whites.”
From Criminal Justice in Indian Country: A Theoretical and Empirical Agenda (2019) · cites this paper as Rodriguez 2003
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References 36 · Cited by 18
- Authors
- Rodriguez, N.
- Affiliations
- Arizona State University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Rodriguez, Nancy
- ORCID
- Rodriguez, Nancy
- Venue
- Criminal Justice Policy Review
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2003-03
- Volume
- 14
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 106-127
- ISSN
- 0887-4034 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-3586
- OpenAlex
- W1996338305
- Cited by
- 18
- References
- 36
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 4 · 2017: 3 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 1 · 2013: 1 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 1.30
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Criminal Justice Policy Review (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis
- Social Sciences › Law › Criminal Justice and Penology
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Criminal Law and Policy
- Keywords
- strikes, sentencing decisions, repeat offenders, violent offenders, felony offenders, sentence length, crime types, Washington State
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