TERRORISM,POLITICS, AND PUNISHMENT: A TEST OF STRUCTURAL-CONTEXTUAL THEORY AND THE “LIBERATION HYPOTHESIS”*

The sentencing literature generally has been characterized by an inability to explain Significant amounts of the variance in sentencing outcomes. Two major theoretical explanations have addressed this issue: structural-contextual theory and the “liberation hypothesis.” Structural-contextual theory suggests that the components of the justice system traditionally work somewhat independently of one another. This theory suggests that variance explained in sentence outcomes will increase appreciably when components function with greater interdependence—a so-called “tightening” or “coupling” effect. Such tightening supposedly takes place when particular cases are given high priority for investigation and prosecution. An example of this situation might be domestic terrorism. The liberation hypothesis suggests that the greater the severity of an offense, the less likely judges or juries will feel free to follow their own sentiments regarding guilt and punishment. As a consequence, the ability of legal variables to predict variation in sentence length will be greater as crime severity increases. This study compares a sample of officially designated terrorists matched with nonterrorists convicted of the same federal offenses. OLS regression and structural equation modeling procedures are used to compare the levels of explained variance for the two groups. The results indicate strong support for the basic premises of both theories. Explained variance for the terrorist sample is more than four times greater than the explained variance for the nonterrorist sample. Further analysis shows that explained variance is highest for terrorists who have committed a high-severity offense and lowest for nonterrorists who have committed a low-severity offense. The subsequent addition of other predictor variables available only for the terrorist sample further increases the explained variance and provides additional support for the liberation hypothesis.     

THE PROSECUTION AND PUNISHMENT OF INTERNATIONAL TERRORISTS IN FEDERAL COURTS: 1980–1998*

Research Summary: This study reports findings from the American Terrorism Study. The data show that from 1980 to 1998, the U.S. government periodically tried accused domestic and international terrorists through the use of traditional criminal trials. The extent to which federal prosecutors “explicit politicized” these trials (and the success that the politicization had) varied among the types of terrorist groups. Explicit politically was not found to be successful in trials of domestic terrorists but seemed to work for trials involving international terrorists. Over the 20‐year period, however, federal prosecutors began to rely more heavily (and more successfully) on the politicization of the criminal acts by international terrorists. The results also show that international terrorists, like their domestic counterparts, are much less likely to plead guilty. Finally, the study shows that these traditional trials have resulted in international terrorists being punished more severely than domestic terrorists. Unfortunately, the practice of performing these politicized trials within the venue of the federal court system may have been compromised by defense strategies that capitalized on the due process procedures so prominent in the U.S. system of justice. In the wake of the terrorism attacks in September 2001 by foreign nationals, the federal government began to take the next step in its “war against terrorism” by instituting the use of military tribunals. Policy Implications: Although the federal government has been relatively successful in the prosecution of terrorism in America in the past two decades, the movement toward the use of military tribunals has perhaps become inevitable (as the use of the traditional criminal trial for international terrorists manifests weaknesses). In the short term, it is likely that several international terrorism cases stemming from the September 2001 attacks and other subsequent attacks (which may be presumed) will be tried in federal courthouses across the country (even with the advent of military tribunals). Federal prosecutors will need to be trained on the specifics of trying these kinds of cases. In the long term, the use of military tribunals will provide greater ease of prosecution for the federal government. Long‐term consequences such as retaliatory attacks and attacks aimed at the release of political prisoners cannot be ignored by policy makers.     

THE CONCEPTUALIZATION OF DISCRIMINATION IN THE JUVENILE JUSTICE PROCESS: THE IMPACT OF ADMINISTRATIVE FACTORS AND SCREENING DECISIONS ON JUVENILE COURT DISPOSITIONS

Research on race, sex, and social class discrimination in the juvenile justice process has yielded mixed results. These conflicting findings have been attributed to the use of diverse research strategies and various methodological shortcomings. There are, however, two potentially important issues that have not been previously addressed: the need to examine the juvenile justice system as a process, rather than as a series of separate and unrelated decision points, and the failure to control for the impact of administrative factors such as pretrial detention. The purpose of the research reported here is to examine the impact of race, sex, and social class on juvenile court dispositions while controlling for pretrial detention and appropriate legal factors. The analytical strategy employed permits an examination of the impact of these factors over three stages of the juvenile justice process: referral, adjudication, and disposition.
Findings indicate that while legal factors and pretrial detention decline in importance as predictors of disposition as one moves from an examination of all referred to adjudicated youth, race and social class become more important. These results are discussed in terms of their methodological significance and their implications for the conceptualization of discrimination in the juvenile justice process.     

PUNISHING POLITICAL OFFENDERS: THE EFFECT OF POLITICAL MOTIVE ON FEDERAL SENTENCING DECISIONS*

Although political motive is frequently avoided as an issue in the prosecution of terrorists, previous research indicates that these offenders consistently receive longer sentences than nonterrorists convicted of similar offenses (Smith, 1994). This study assesses the ability of three theoretical models (consensus, conflict, and structural-contextual) to explain these differences in sentencing patterns. Data on terrorists (N = 95), provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, and the U.S. Sentencing Commission, is matched with data on a sample of similarly convicted nonterrorists from the Federal Court Cases Integrated Data Base, 1970-1991 (N = 403). Controlling for a number of demographic and sentencing-related variables, the results indicate that the official label of “terrorist” is not only a significant predictor of sentence length, but emerges as the dominant explanatory variable in the analysis. The results provide general support for both consensus and conflict hypotheses, but only partial support for structural-contextual theory. The findings also raise procedural questions regarding the extensive variation in sentencing between similarly situated defendants when political motive is used as a primary criterion for sentence enhancements.     

THE REGULATION OF INTERACTION BY POLICE

Scholars agree that a preoccupation of police is the maintenance of their authority during encounters with civilians. There is little knowledge of how they seek to do this. Using a subset of process data from a large, quantitative, observational field study of police, the authors analyze it from the perspective of general systems theory. They find that authority is maintained in most cases by much more subtle means than past studies have identified.     

Technological Disasters,Litigation Stress,and the Use of Alternative Dispute Resolution Mechanisms*

The legal system in the United States is uniquely conflict‐oriented, expensive, and legalistic. From the perspective of victims, we contend that adversarial litigation is particularly ineffective as a means of resolving conflicts that typically ensue in the aftermath of technological disasters. The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, we discuss why the psychosocial impact of litigation on litigants following a technological disaster is particularly damaging. Second, examining longitudinal data collected following the Exxon Valdez oil spill, we demonstrate that the litigation process itself functions as a source of secondary trauma for litigants. Third, we provide suggestions for bypassing the litigation process altogether, via alternative dispute resolution mechanisms. Although it may be that we have exchanged swords and cudgels for subpoenas and depositions, an aura of combat continues to hover about the judicial process, and combat produces casualties. Strasburger (1999 : 203)