A processual order approach to studying sentencing guidelines: contexts, activities, and consequences

Abstract

Sentencing policies are developed, enacted, and filtered through national and state-level political processes, the local political and organizational contexts of communities and their courts, and the decisions and actions of individuals such as attorneys and judges. This article uses Pennsylvania's sentencing guidelines as an example to illustrate the value of a symbolic interactionist framework known as the processual order approach for research on policy in general and sentencing guidelines policy in particular. I first discuss some general characteristics and dilemmas of courts and sentencing policy, and then review the processual order approach. Next, I discuss national and state-level processes that led to the development and enactment of Pennsylvania's sentencing guidelines, and then summarize findings from research on local court contexts, case processing, and sentencing under guidelines. I conclude with five processual order propositions to guide research on the interrelationships between contexts, activities, and consequences surrounding the development and implementation of policy, and suggest some diverse and ambitious topics to which these propositions could be applied.