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The Effect of Legal and Extra‐Legal Variables on the Recommending and Granting of a Pardon
Author(s) -
Austin Thomas,
Hummer Don
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
law and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.534
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1467-9930
pISSN - 0265-8240
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9930.00085
Subject(s) - governor , process (computing) , economic justice , law , legal process , political science , decision process , criminal justice , psychology , sociology , business , computer science , process management , engineering , aerospace engineering , operating system
A familiar but little studied area of criminal justice is that of pardons. Using data from the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons, the decision‐making process is examined to determine the degree of correspondence between the board’s recommendation and the governor’s decision to grant or deny a pardon. Included in the analysis is an assessment of the relative impact of legal and extra‐legal variables on the decision‐making process. The paper concludes with a discussion on the dynamics of the process, including why some individuals are more likely than others to be granted a pardon, and the implications the findings have for both policy and theory development.