EVALUATING THE COOK COUNTY SENTENCING GUIDELINES

This article examines the empirical basis for current criminal sentencing guidelines being used in Cook County, Illinois. Unlike in many other sentencing reforms, guidelines have generally been developed out of an empirical analysis of past sentencing decisions through the identification of variables most predictive of sentence. However, when the statistical analysis is inadequate or faulty, the resultant sentencing guidelines must be questioned. Presented is a reanalysis of the original data used to develop Cook County's sentencing guidelines. Generally, the current sentencing guidelines used in Cook County are not found to be predictive of sentence. Implications of this finding are discussed.     

Rights, Legal Reasoning and Rational Discourse

Abstract
The first part of this article contains an analysis of the concept of a right, which implies a rational structure of reasoning about rights, elaborated in the second part. In the third part both the concept of a right and reasoning about rights are connected with the theory of rational discourse. The author's thesis is that there exists an internal relation between the theory of rights and the theory of legal reasoning.     

RESIDENTIAL SUCCESSION AND DELINQUENCY A Test of Shaw and McKay's Theory of Cultural Transmission

The impact of neighborhood cultural and institutional lye upon rates of delinquency among black male adolescents is examined. Focusing on three adjacent black neighborhoods at varying levels of black population change, this paper presents direct tests of three corollaries derived from a causal model adapted from Shaw and Mc Kays cultural transmission theory of delinquency. The preliminary results are compatible with the model: the level of delinquency is higher in a racially changing than in two more racially stable neighborhoods. Other findings. however, fail to support the cultural transmission interpretation of these results. Contrary to Shaw and Mc Kay, delinquency is lowest in the area where criminal influences are the most pronounced. This anomaly is discussed and interpreted in a manner consistent with De FIeur and Quinney's (1966) reformulation of differential association theory.     

DELINQUENCY AND SPECIAL DETERRENCE

The research reported herein is a replication of Cluster's (1967) work. The deference is that we recast the interpretation into a framework of special deterrence. The results are paradoxical: relative to others, training school boys give higher estimates of the likelihood of offenses culminating in arrest and conviction, but they are more likely to say that they would commit such offenses in the future.