Community-Level Influences on the Sentencing of Convicted Sex Offenders, Pennsylvania, 2004-2010

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed. This study examined the extent to which contextual factors influenced variation in sex offender sentencing decisions. By law, Pennsylvania trial courts were required to submit all felony and misdemeanor convictions under the Pennsylvania Sentencing Guidelines to the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing on a yearly basis. These data were supplemented with county-level data from the American Community Survey, Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts' Annual Caseload Statistics of the Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania, Associated Religion Data Archives, and Pennsylvania Department of State, Voter Registration Statistics Archives. The collection contains 1 SPSS data file (Cleaned-Data-2015-R2-CX-0039.sav (n=318048; 31 variables)). Demographic variables include gender, race, and defendant's age at sentencing.