Defining the Sentencing Decision: Implications of Alternate Conceptualizations.

ONE definition ( or OF ordinal THE of ) MOST distinction the dependent CRITICAL of offender ISSUES variable. IN status SENTENCING Is sentencing and, therefore, RESEARCH a categorical a general IS THE definition of the dependent variable. Is sentencing a categorical ( or dinal ) distinction of offender status and, therefore, a general type of punishment? Or is it appropriately defined as an interval measure of incarcerationeither in the judicially declared sentence or in the actual length of confinement? As Pope (1975:14) observes, most of the recent investigations in criminal justice have relied on a single indicator of severity. Recognizing the limitations of simple categorical and interval definitions, some researchers (e.g., Tiffany et al., 1975) operationalize sentence as an index that combines the major features of both ordinal and interval conceptions. Recent investigations in the area, however, point out that the sentencing decision is not a single determination. Wilkins and his colleagues (1976), for example, point out that the sentencing decision is a "bifurcated or two-step process." In the first instance the court determines the general type of postconviction penalty ( suspension of sentence, probation or incarceration); in the second the court specifically deals with the severity of the type of sanction that it had already decided to impose (e.g., size of fine, length of probation or length of incarceration). These definitional distinctions carry some interesting consequences for methodology consequences that ultimately impinge on theory and policy. In terms of methodology, the definition of the dependent variable outlines the research problem and helps to determine the range of statistical techniques for analysis.2 For example, if sentencing is operationalized as a categorical variable, then discriminant analysis would be the appropriate multivariate tool. If it were conceptualized in interval terms, then regression analysis would be applied. In this note we will look at two conceptualizations of the sentencing decision, operationalize the respective dependent variable accordingly, and apply the same set of independent variables in separate analyses of