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    Nudge the judge? Theorizing the interaction between heuristics, sentencing guidelines and sentence clustering


    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

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    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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