Marder, Ian D. and Pina-Sánchez, Jose
(2020)
Nudge the judge?
Theorizing the interaction
between heuristics,
sentencing guidelines
and sentence clustering.
Criminology & Criminal Justice, 20 (4).
pp. 399-415.
ISSN 1748-8958
Abstract
Although it has long been acknowledged that heuristics influence judicial decision making,
researchers have yet to explore how sentencing guidelines might interact with heuristics to
shape sentencing decisions. This article contributes to addressing this gap in the literature
in three ways: first, by considering how heuristics might help produce the phenomenon of
sentence clustering, in which a significant proportion of sentences are concentrated around
a small number of outcomes; second, by reflecting on the role of sentencing guidelines as a
feature of the environment within which sentencing decisions are made; and third, by analysing
the guidelines from Minnesota and from England and Wales, theorizing how their content
might interact with heuristics to make clustering more or less likely. Ultimately, we argue that
sentencing guidelines likely affect the role played by heuristics in shaping sentencing decisions
and, consequently, that their design should be informed by research evidence from the decision
sciences.
| Item Type: |
Article
|
| Additional Information: |
Cite as: Marder ID, Pina-Sánchez J. Nudge the judge? Theorizing the interaction between heuristics, sentencing guidelines and sentence clustering. Criminology & Criminal Justice. 2020;20(4):399-415. doi:10.1177/1748895818818869 |
| Keywords: |
Choice architecture; heuristics; judicial decision making; nudge theory; sentence clustering;
sentencing; sentencing guidelines; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Social Sciences > Law |
| Item ID: |
11734 |
| Identification Number: |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895/818818869 |
| Depositing User: |
Ian Marder
|
| Date Deposited: |
18 Nov 2019 12:30 |
| Journal or Publication Title: |
Criminology & Criminal Justice |
| Publisher: |
SAGE Publications |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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