PAROLE DECISIONMAKING AND THE INFLUENCE OF SENTENCING STRUCTURE: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

This research is a field study of parole decisionmaking in a jurisdiction of wide discretion ("Northeast," a state in the northeastern region of the United States) and a jurisdiction of constricted discretion (Israel). The basic research objective was to study the process of the decisionmaking, including the types of information board members chose to evaluate and the kinds of judgments they made. The research sites were selected to test for a possible influence from the sentencing and parole laws that determine the amount of available discretion. Specifically, it was hypothesized that decisionmakers in high discretion jurisdictions will emphasize evaluations of the present offense severity to determine the amount of deserved punishment as much as they emphasize the assessment of parole risk. Those in low discretion jurisdictions, however, will weigh risk assessments more heavily than retributive evaluations.;The results supported the main hypothesis: Israeli board members tended to project parole risk from problematic parole and institutional behavior records, while their Northeastern counterparts focused heavily on estimating deserved punishment from evaluations of present offense severity. All the most powerful predictors were negative in valence (i.e., they supported parole denial). A high percentage of decision variance was explained using the four data sets, but a minority of cases were decided on the basis of criteria other than those reported as significant predictors. The implications from all findings are discussed with reference to future studies of legal decisionmaking, the development of guideline systems to aid decisionmakers and collaboration possibilities for lawyers and social scientists.;The data were collected from each jurisdiction in four sets, keyed to specific hearing phases. Case file information was coded from prisoners' folders, while interview data were collected from statements and questions made during the hearing. The reasons set was developed from the written statements issued after each hearing ended. Finally, self-report case forms required board members to indicate the primary decision criteria in each case.