Corrections From Research To Policy To Practice 1st Edition Stohr Test Bank 1

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Stohr, Corrections: From Research, to Policy, to Practice, 1st Edition

SAGE Publishing, 2018
Corrections From Research to Policy to

Practice 1st Edition by Stohr ISBN
1483373371 9781483373379
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Chapter 5: Sentencing: The Application of Punishment
Test Bank
Multiple Choice
1. What is a punitive penalty ordered by the court after a defendant has been convicted
of a crime, either by a jury, a bench trial, by a judge, or in a plea bargain?
A. Conviction
B. Justice
C. Revenge
D. Sentence
Ans: D
Learning Objective: 5-1: Explain how modern sentencing engages Aristotle’s notion of
justice.
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: What Is Sentencing?
Difficulty Level: Easy
2. A moral concept that is difficult to define, but in essence means to treat people in
ways consistent with norms of fairness and in accordance with what they justly deserve
by virtue of their behavior is known as what?
A. Conviction
B. Justice
C. Revenge
D. Sentence
Ans: B
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justice.
3. Who provided the following definition: “Justice consists of treating equals equally, and
unequals unequally according to relevant differences?”
A. Plato
B. Beccaria
C. Aristotle
D. Homer
Ans: C
justice.
4. What type of sentence is one in which the actual number of years a person may
serve is not fixed, but is rather a range of years?
A. Split
B. Determinate
C. Indeterminate
D. Mandatory
Ans: C
Learning Objective: 5-2: Describe the different types of sentencing and their rationales.
Answer Location: Indeterminate Sentence
5. What type of sentence means that convicted criminals are given a fixed number of
years they must serve rather than a range?
A. Split
B. Determinate
C. Indeterminate
D. Mandatory
Ans: B
Answer Location: Determinate Sentence
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6. What type of sentence can exist in the context of both determinate and indeterminate
sentencing structures and simply means that probation is not an option and that the
minimum time be set by law?
A. Split
B. Determinate
C. Indeterminate
D. Mandatory
Ans: D
Answer Location: Mandatory Sentence
7. What type of sentences are two sentences ordered to be served at the same time?
A. Split
B. Determinate
C. Consecutive
D. Concurrent
Ans: D
Answer Location: Concurrent and Consecutive Sentences
8. What type of sentences are two or more sentences that must be served sequentially?
A. Split
B. Determinate
C. Consecutive
D. Concurrent
Ans: C
9. Which statutes are derived from the same punitive atmosphere that led to truth in
sentencing statutes?
A. Habitual offender
B. Truth in sentencing
C. Life without parole
D. None of the above
Ans: A
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Answer Location: Habitual-Offender Statutes
10. What type of sentence exposes offenders to the reality of prison life for a short
period of time, followed by probation?
A. Shock probation
B. Split sentences
C. Noncustodial sentences
D. Drug court
Ans: A
Answer Location: Alternatives to Incarceration
11. Which of the following types of sentences may seem popular with the public at large
until they get the bill?
A. Habitual offender
B. Truth in sentencing
C. Life without parole
D. None of these
Ans: C
Cognitive Domain: Application
12. Which type of sentence requires felons to serve brief periods of confinement in a
county jail prior to placement on probation?
A. Shock probation
B. Split sentences
D. Drug court
Ans: B
13. Which type of sentence requires participants to be involved in an intensive treatment

program that lasts about 1 year?
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A. Shock probation
B. Split sentences
D. Drug court
Ans: D
14. What occurs when there is a wide variation in sentences received by different
offenders?
A. Sentencing disparity
B. Fair Sentencing Act
C. Anti-Drug Abuse Act
D. U.S. Sentencing Commission Report to Congress
Ans: A
Learning Objective: 5-4: Discuss the role of victim impact statements and the issues
surrounding sentencing disparity.
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: Sentencing Disparities: Legitimate and Illegitimate
15. What established a 100 to 1 quantity ratio differential between powder and crack
cocaine?
Ans: C
Answer Location: Sentencing for Crack Versus Powder Cocaine
16. What increased the amount of cocaine subject to the five year minimum sentence
from five grams to 28 g?
Ans: B
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17. Congress reacted to media hype about how addictive crack was based on what?
D. U.S. Sentencing Commission Report
Ans: D
18. What is used to assist judges in making sentencing recommendations?

A. Presentence investigation reports
B. Sentencing files
C. Investigation reports
D. Judge’s reports
Ans: A
Learning Objective: 5-5: Identify the purpose of presentence reports and sentencing
guidelines, as well as the contentious issues surrounding them.
Answer Location: The Presentence Investigation Report
19. A presentence investigation report is generally written by whom?

A. The judge
B. The judge’s clerk
C. The probation officer
D. The parole officer
Ans: C
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20. How many states currently require disclosure of the presentence investigation
report?
A. 10
B. 14
C. 15
D. 16
Ans: D
21. What was charged with the task of creating mandatory sentencing guidelines?
A. United States Sentencing Commission
B. Sentencing guidelines
C. Sentencing disparity
D. Fair Sentencing Act
Ans: A
Answer Location: Sentencing Guidelines
22. Forms containing scales that come with a set of rules for numerically computing
sentences that offenders should receive based on the crime they committed and their
criminal records are known as what?
A. United States Sentencing Commission
B. Sentencing guidelines
C. Sentencing disparity
D. Fair Sentencing Act
Ans: B
23. The creation of the sentencing guidelines intended to do what?

A. Create judicial bias
B. Help determine guilt or innocence
C. Reign in judicial discretion
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D. Classify offenders into institutions

Ans: C
24. Sentencing guidelines are now ______, meaning that judges can consult them and
follow them or not.
A. presumptive
B. advisory
C. mandatory
D. wishful thinking
E. none of these
Ans: B
25. In which Supreme Court case did the court rule that the federal sentencing
guidelines were no longer to be binding on the states?
A. United States v. Booker
B. Apprendi v. New Jersey
C. Blakely v. Washington
D. Rita v. United States
Ans: A
Answer Location: The Future of Sentencing Guidelines
26. Which of the following factors can affect a judge’s decision when sentencing a
defendant?
A. Seriousness of crime
B. Prior record
C. Offender cooperation
D. All of these
Ans: D
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Answer Location: Various Pages
Difficulty Level: Medium
27. What type of sentence is work release, whereby a person is consigned to a special
portion of the jail on weekends and nights, but released to go to work during the day?
A. Shock probation
B. Split sentences
D. Drug court
Ans: B
28. What is reasonable and just if the members of a group being more harshly punished
commit more crimes than the individual members of other groups, but discriminatory
and unjust if they do not?
B. Sentencing variation
C. Fair Sentencing Act
D. Presentence report
Ans: B
29. Truth-in-sentencing laws require that there be a truthful, realistic connection

between the custodial sentence imposed on offenders and the time they actually serve,
and they mandate that inmates serve at least ______ % of their sentences before
becoming eligible for release.
A. 20
B. 45
C. 85
D. 60
Ans: C
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30. A Fair Sentencing Act was introduced and passed by Congress, and was signed
into law by which president?
A. Clinton
B. Bush
C. Regan
D. Obama
Ans: D
31. In what year was the Anti-Drug Abuse Act passed?

A. 1984
B. 1986
C. 1988
D. 1990
Ans: C
True/False
1. Sentencing refers to a post-conviction stage of the criminal justice process.

Ans: T
justice.
2. Justice is a moral concept that is easy to define.

Ans: F
justice.
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Answer Location: What is Sentencing?
3. The determinate sentencing model prevailed most strongly under the so-called
“medical model.”
Ans: F
4. Under indeterminate sentencing, offenders know how much time they will serve.
Ans: F
5. The habitual offender statute is a way of selectively incapacitating felons only after
they have demonstrated the inability to live by society’s rules.
Ans: T
6. Shock probation is typically reserved for chronic offenders.

Ans: F
7. In addition to saving the states many millions of dollars in jail and prison costs, drug
courts appear to be unsuccessful in reducing recidivism.
Ans: F
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8. The biggest concern with sentencing disparity is racial discrimination.

Ans: T
9. Asian Americans receive harsher sentences on average than Whites or African

Americans.
Ans: F
10. In 1988, Congress passed the U.S. Sentencing Commission Report which
established a 100 to 1 quantity ratio differential between powder and crack cocaine.
Ans: F
11. The PSI is not an important document in regard to sentencing.

Ans: F
12. In the federal system, probation officers create the PSI.

Ans: F
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13. In a PSI, generally officers make sentencing recommendations to the judge.

Ans: T
14. Prior to 1984, federal judges enjoyed almost unlimited sentencing discretion as long
as they stayed within the statutory maximum penalties.
Ans: T
15. Truth-in-sentencing laws have led to longer sentences.

Ans: T
16. An indeterminate sentence is a range of years.

Ans: T
17. In a determinate sentence, offenders are given a fixed number of years.

Ans: T
18. Indeterminate sentences are also known as fixed sentences.
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Ans: F
19. Sentencing guidelines are now mandatory in the federal system.

Ans: F
20. Plea bargains are agreements between defendants and prosecutors in which
defendants agree to plead guilty in exchange for certain concessions.
Ans: T
Learning Objective: 5-3: Assess the benefits and criticisms of plea bargains.
Answer Location: Plea Bargaining
Short Answer
1. What is a victim impact statement?

Ans: A victim impact statement allows persons directly affected by the crime (or victims’
survivors in the case of murder) to inform the court of the personal and emotional harm
they have suffered as a result of the defendant’s actions and, in some states, to make a
sentencing recommendation.
Answer Location: Victim Impact Statements
2. What is indeterminate sentencing?

Ans: A prison sentence in which the actual number of years a person may serve is not
fixed, but is rather a range of years.
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3. What is determinate sentencing?

Ans: A prison sentence of a fixed number of years that must be served rather than a
range.
4. Define the term consecutive sentencing.

Ans: Two or more sentences that must be served sequentially.
5. Define the term concurrent sentencing.

Ans: Two separate sentences are served at the same time.
6. What was the purpose of the United States Sentencing Commission?

Ans: A commission charged with creating mandatory sentencing guidelines to control
judicial discretion.
7. Define the term habitual offender statutes?

Ans: Statutes mandating that offenders with a third felony conviction be sentenced to
life imprisonment regardless of the nature of the third felony.
8. What are sentencing guidelines?
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Ans: Scales for numerically computing sentences that offenders should receive based
on the crime they committed and on their criminal records.
Essay
1. Discuss habitual offender statutes. What are they? How do you feel they have
affected sentencing today?
Ans: Habitual offender statutes are statutes mandating that offenders with a third felony
conviction be sentenced to life imprisonment regardless of the nature of the third felony.
This is a way of selectively incapacitating felons only after they have demonstrated the
inability to live by society’s rules. Few of us would be against the lifetime incarceration
of seriously violent offenders, but many states include relatively minor nonviolent crimes
in their habitual status offenders. The last part of the essay question is subjective
2. Compare and contrast a sentence of shock probation versus a split sentence. Which
would you want if you could choose and why?
Ans: Shock probation is a type of sentence aimed at shocking offenders into going
straight by exposing them to the reality of prison life for a short period followed by
probation. Shock probation is typically reserved for young, first-time offenders who have
committed a relatively serious felony but who are considered redeemable. Split
sentences are sentences that require felons to serve brief periods of confinement in a
county jail prior to probation placement. Jail time may have to be served all at once or
spread over a certain period, such as every weekend in jail for the first year of probation
placement. Second part of the essay is subjective.
3. Discuss the issues between crack versus powder cocaine. Do you believe the
sentencing ratio should remain where it is? Why or why not?
Ans: One of the biggest concerns in the sentencing disparity literature is the huge
differences in sentencing received by crack possession versus sentences imposed on
possession of powder cocaine. Of particular concern was the difference in sentencing
imposed on those who used or sold the cheaper crack cocaine, who tended to be
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Instructor Resource
minority group offenders, particularly African Americans, versus those who used or sold
powder cocaine, which tended to be more expensive and more likely used and
trafficked by White offenders. In 1988, Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act,
which established a 100-to-1 quantity ratio differential between powder and crack
cocaine. That act also specified that simple possession of crack cocaine was to be
treated more seriously than the simple possession of other illegal drugs. According to a
U.S. Sentencing Commission Report to Congress in 1995, in 1986 Congress was
reacting to media hype about how addictive crack was, with congressional members
claiming crack use was at “epidemic” levels, crack babies were severely impaired, and
about crime related to crack use was out of control in some cities. At the time of this
1995 report, the Commission knew that “88.3 percent of the offenders convicted in
federal court for crack cocaine distribution in 1993 were Black and 7.1 percent were
Hispanic,” and critics were concerned that instead of fair and evenhanded sentences for
all, the effect of the Anti-Drug Act was to be unfair and harsh in sentencing of racial
minorities. Criticisms of the different treatment of people convicted of possession of
pharmacologically identical drugs resulting in the increased incarceration of minorities
for longer periods of time mounted to the point where Congress had to do something. In
2009, a Fair Sentencing Act was introduced and passed by Congress and signed into
law by President Obama on August 3rd, 2010. Under the act, the amount of crack
cocaine subject to the 5-year minimum sentence is increased from 5 g to 28 g, thus
reducing the 100-to-1 ratio to 18-to-1 ratio (28 g of crack gets as much time as 500 g of
powder cocaine). Thus, there is still a large sentencing differential between possessors
of crack versus possessors of powder cocaine. This ratio probably reflects lawmaker’s
perceptions that crack is more intimately related to violence (in territorial battles) and to
a higher probability of addiction than the powder variety. Second part of essay is
subjective.
Cognitive Domain: Analysis
Difficulty Level: Hard
4. Discuss the case of United States v. Booker (2005). What did this case do to the
sentencing guidelines as they were first implemented?
Ans: The circumstances of the case are that Freddie Booker was arrested in 2003 in
possession of 92.5 g of crack cocaine. He also admitted to police that he had sold an
additional 566 g. A jury found Booker guilty of possession with intent to sell at least 50
g, for which the possible penalty ranged from 10 years to life. At sentencing, the judge
used additional information (the additional 566 g and the fact the Booker had obstructed
justice) to sentence Booker to 30 years. Booker’s sentence would have been 21 years
and 10 months based on the facts presented to the jury and proved beyond a
reasonable doubt. Booker appealed his sentence, arguing that his Sixth Amendment
rights had been violated by the judge “finding facts” when this is the proper role of the
jury. An earlier federal appeals court had ruled that the facts of prior convictions are the
only facts judges can “find” as justification for increasing sentencing. In other words,
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Instructor Resource
anything other than prior record that is used to increase a criminal penalty beyond what
the guidelines call for must be submitted to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable
doubt. The Supreme Court agreed with Booker that his sentence violated the Sixth
Amendment and sent the case back to District Court with instructions either to sentence
Booker within the sentencing range supported by the jury’s findings or to hold a
sentencing hearing before a jury (Bissonnette, 2006). The remedial portion of the
Court’s opinion (what can be done to prevent this happening again?) is much more
controversial. The Court held that the guidelines were to be advisory only, and therefore
no longer binding on judges. However, the Court did require them to “consult” the
guidelines and take them into consideration, but there is no way of assuring that judges
comply. John Ashcroft, the U.S. Attorney General at the time, called the decision “a
retreat from justice,” and Congressman Tom Feeney decried, “The extraordinary power
to sentence” now afforded federal judges who are accountable to no one, said that the
decision “flies in the face of the clear will of Congress” (Bissonnette, 2006, p. 1499). In
fact, Booker was resentenced by the same judge to the same 30-year sentence that he
originally received. Because the sentencing guidelines had then become merely
advisory, the judge did not have to further justify his sentence since it was within the
range of the statutorily defined penalty. The Court’s ruling on guidelines only applies to
the federal system at present.
Answer Location: The Future of Sentencing Guidelines
5. Discuss sentencing disparity. Give an example of legitimate sentencing disparity and

illegitimate sentencing disparity in your discussion.
Ans: Sentencing disparity occurs when there is wide variation in sentences received by
different offenders. This disparity is legitimate if it is based on considerations such as
crime seriousness and/or prior record, but discriminatory if it is not. We think of
sentencing disparity as discriminatory if differences in punishment in cases in which no
rational justification can be found for it. The biggest concern is racial discrimination.
There is no doubt that the American criminal justice system has a dark history of racial
discrimination, but does this indictment still apply? African Americans receive harsher
sentences on average than White or Asian American offenders, a fact often seen as
racist. Sentencing variation is reasonable and just if the group being more harshly
punished commits more crimes than other groups, but discriminatory and unjust if they
do not. The second part of the essay is subjective.
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Instructor Resource
6. Name the six outcomes consistent with Aristotle’s definition of justice regarding the
sentencing guidelines, according to Lubitz and Ross (2001).
Ans: (i) A reduction in sentencing disparity.
(ii) More uniform and consistent sentencing.
(iii) A more open and understandable sentencing process.
(iv) Decreased punishment for certain categories of offenses and offenders and
increased it for others.
(v) Aid in prioritizing and allocating correctional resources.
(vi) Provision of rational basis for sentencing and increased judicial accountability.
7. Discuss some of the controversies associated with the PSI report.

Ans: Because the future of a defendant depends to a great extent on the content of the
report, the information contained therein should be reliable and objective. All pertinent
information must be verified by cross-checking with more than one source, and that
source should be reliable. The officer must be careful in the terms he or she uses to
describe the offender. The use of phrases such as “morally bankrupt” or “sweet young
lady” may reveal more about the officer’s attitudes and values rather than the
defendant’s character. It is feared that if victims and other informants from whom the
investigating officer has sought information know that the offender will see their
comments, they will refuse to offer their information, thus the judge will not have
complete information on which to make the sentencing decision.
Difficulty Level: Medium
8. What information is included in the presentence investigation report? Do you think all
of this information should be included?
Ans: Demographic information, circumstances of the offense, defendant’s version, prior
record, present family status, present employment or support, physical health, mental
health, evaluative summary, sentence recommendation. Second part of the essay
question is subjective
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Stohr, Corrections: From Research, to Policy, to Practice, 1st Edition

Corrections From Research to Policy to

Chapter 5: Sentencing: The Application of Punishment

13. Which type of sentence requires participants to be involved in an intensive treatment

18. What is used to assist judges in making sentencing recommendations?

19. A presentence investigation report is generally written by whom?

23. The creation of the sentencing guidelines intended to do what?

D. Classify offenders into institutions

29. Truth-in-sentencing laws require that there be a truthful, realistic connection

Answer Location: Indeterminate Sentence

31. In what year was the Anti-Drug Abuse Act passed?

1. Sentencing refers to a post-conviction stage of the criminal justice process.

2. Justice is a moral concept that is easy to define.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

6. Shock probation is typically reserved for chronic offenders.

8. The biggest concern with sentencing disparity is racial discrimination.

9. Asian Americans receive harsher sentences on average than Whites or African

11. The PSI is not an important document in regard to sentencing.

12. In the federal system, probation officers create the PSI.

Difficulty Level: Easy

13. In a PSI, generally officers make sentencing recommendations to the judge.

15. Truth-in-sentencing laws have led to longer sentences.

16. An indeterminate sentence is a range of years.

17. In a determinate sentence, offenders are given a fixed number of years.

18. Indeterminate sentences are also known as fixed sentences.

19. Sentencing guidelines are now mandatory in the federal system.

1. What is a victim impact statement?

2. What is indeterminate sentencing?

3. What is determinate sentencing?

4. Define the term consecutive sentencing.

5. Define the term concurrent sentencing.

6. What was the purpose of the United States Sentencing Commission?

7. Define the term habitual offender statutes?

8. What are sentencing guidelines?

5. Discuss sentencing disparity. Give an example of legitimate sentencing disparity and

7. Discuss some of the controversies associated with the PSI report.

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