Comparing Criminal History Enhancements in Three Jurisdictions

How much weight does a prior conviction carry at sentencing for a current offense? The answer is that it greatly depends where the offender is sentenced. In some states, a prior felony means a few extra months imprisonment. In others, it can mean additional years. In 2015, the Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice published the Criminal History Enhancements Sourcebook, which provides a detailed comparison of the various ways 18 U.S. sentencing guidelines jurisdictions use an offender's prior criminal record to enhance punishment for a current crime. Among the primary takeaways from the Sourcebook are that (1) jurisdictions have very different approaches to criminal history enhancements and that (2) these different approaches can have considerable impacts on important policy outcomes like racial disparities and the financial costs of imprisoning more offenders (many of whom are aging and convicted of non-violent crimes). This Policy Brief illustrates the extraordinary variation in the use of criminal history enhancements by comparing the impact of criminal history scores for offenders in three states: Kansas, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania

Sentencing Members of Minority Groups:Problems and Prospects for Improvement in Four Countries

Members of racial, ethnic, and Indigenous minorities have long accounted for disproportionate percentages of prison admissions in Western nations and of prison populations. The minorities affected vary between countries. Discriminatory or differential treatment by criminal justice officials from policing through to parole is part of the problem. Much media and professional attention focuses on sentencing, where the decision-making is most public. An emerging body of research identifies sentencing as a cause—or, at the very least, an amplifier—of minority overincarceration. Solutions aiming to reduce it have been implemented, with varying but modest degrees of success, in the United States, England and Wales, Canada, and Aotearoa New Zealand. Progress toward reducing minority overincarceration has been slow. Most US sentencing commissions have failed to determine the extent to which their guidelines contribute to the problem. The Sentencing Council of England and Wales has taken the limited step of warning judges about racial disparities, without suggesting remedial steps to be taken. Courts in Canada and Aotearoa New Zealand have taken more activist approaches, mitigating sentences when offenders adduce evidence of discrimination or abuse by criminal justice officials

Criminal History Enhancements Sourcebook

Criminal history scores make up one of the two most significant determinants of the punishment an offender receives in a sentencing guidelines jurisdiction. While prior convictions are taken into account by all U.S. sentencing systems, sentencing guidelines make the role of prior crimes more explicit by specifying the counting rules and by indicating the effect of prior convictions on sentence severity. Yet, once established, criminal history scoring formulas go largely unexamined. Moreover, there is great diversity across state and federal jurisdictions in the ways that an offender's criminal record is considered by courts at sentencing. This Sourcebook brings together for the first time information on criminal history enhancements in all existing U.S. sentencing guidelines systems. Building on this base, the Sourcebook examines major variations in the approaches taken by these systems, and identifies the underlying sentencing policy issues raised by such enhancements.The Sourcebook contains the following elements:A summary of criminal history enhancements in all guidelines jurisdictions;An analysis of the critical dimensions of an offender's previous convictions;A discussion of the policy options available to commissions considering amendments to their criminal history enhancements;A bibliography of key readings on the role of prior convictions at sentencing

The role of sentinel lymph node biopsy in the management of Merkel Cell Carcinoma – a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is a rare cutaneous malignancy with high metastatic potential. Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) is used to assess locoregional spread, facilitate staging, and inform prognosis. Positive nodal status is associated with higher recurrence rates and reduced overall survival.Methods: A systematic search was conducted. Eligible articles included patients diagnosed with MCC, who would be candidates for or who had SLNB. The Covidence tool was used for screening and data extraction, including additional treatments, disease-free survival, overall survival, and recurrence. Methodological quality was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottowa Scale criteria.Results: SLNB was associated with increased likelihood of completion lymphadenectomy (223 versus 41), regional radiotherapy (2167 versus 808), and systemic chemotherapy (138 versus 31). Overall survival for patients undergoing SLNB was 81% at 2 years, 75% at 3 years, and 72% at 5 years (odds ratio: 0.79). Hazard ratio for positive SLNB versus negative was 3.36 (P < 0.001). Five-year disease recurrence was 23.3% in patients undergoing SLNB.Conclusions: Lymph node metastases are associated with reduced overall survival and increased recurrence of MCC. Determining nodal status early can inform prognosis, facilitate staging, and determine need for adjuvant treatment. Adjuvant treatments are associated with reduced mortality and improved overall survival; SLNB is an important influencer of their use. Early prophylactic intervention should be considered in MCC in both positive and negative nodal status to improve overall outcomes. Widespread use of SLNB will allow more accurate assessment of the role of nodal status on adjuvant treatment and long-term outcomes

Lectin-like bacteriocins from pseudomonas spp. utilise D-rhamnose containing lipopolysaccharide as a cellular receptor

Lectin-like bacteriocins consist of tandem monocot mannose-binding domains and display a genus-specific killing activity. Here we show that pyocin L1, a novel member of this family from Pseudomonas aeruginosa, targets susceptible strains of this species through recognition of the common polysaccharide antigen (CPA) of P. aeruginosa lipopolysaccharide that is predominantly a homopolymer of d-rhamnose. Structural and biophysical analyses show that recognition of CPA occurs through the C-terminal carbohydrate-binding domain of pyocin L1 and that this interaction is a prerequisite for bactericidal activity. Further to this, we show that the previously described lectin-like bacteriocin putidacin L1 shows a similar carbohydrate-binding specificity, indicating that oligosaccharides containing d-rhamnose and not d-mannose, as was previously thought, are the physiologically relevant ligands for this group of bacteriocins. The widespread inclusion of d-rhamnose in the lipopolysaccharide of members of the genus Pseudomonas explains the unusual genus-specific activity of the lectin-like bacteriocins

A systematic map of studies testing the relationship between temperature and animal reproduction

Funding: This work was funded by the European Society for Evolution (which funds a Special Topic Network on Evolutionary Ecology of Thermal Fertility Limits to CF, AB, RRS and TARP), the Natural Environment Research Council (NE/P002692/1 to TARP, AB and RRS, NE/X011550/1 to LRD and TARP), the Biotechnology and \Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/W016753/1 to AB, TARP and RRS) and a Heisenberg fellowship from the German Research Foundation (FR 2973/11-1 to CF).1. Exposure to extreme temperatures can negatively affect animal reproduction, by disrupting the ability of individuals to produce any offspring (fertility), or the number of offspring produced by fertile individuals (fecundity). This has important ecological consequences, because reproduction is the ultimate measure of population fitness: a reduction in reproductive output lowers the population growth rate and increases the extinction risk. Despite this importance, there have been no large‐scale summaries of the evidence for effect of temperature on reproduction. 2. We provide a systematic map of studies testing the relationship between temperature and animal reproduction. We systematically searched for published studies that statistically test for a direct link between temperature and animal reproduction, in terms of fertility, fecundity or indirect measures of reproductive potential (gamete and gonad traits). 3. Overall, we collated a large and rich evidence base, with 1654 papers that met our inclusion criteria, encompassing 1191 species. 4. The map revealed several important research gaps. Insects made up almost half of the dataset, but reptiles and amphibians were uncommon, as were non‐arthropod invertebrates. Fecundity was the most common reproductive trait examined, and relatively few studies measured fertility. It was uncommon for experimental studies to test exposure of different life stages, exposure to short‐term heat or cold shock, exposure to temperature fluctuations, or to independently assess male and female effects. Studies were most often published in journals focusing on entomology and pest control, ecology and evolution, aquaculture and fisheries science, and marine biology. Finally, while individuals were sampled from every continent, there was a strong sampling bias towards mid‐latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, such that the tropics and polar regions are less well sampled. 5. This map reveals a rich literature of studies testing the relationship between temperature and animal reproduction, but also uncovers substantial missing treatment of taxa, traits, and thermal regimes. This database will provide a valuable resource for future quantitative meta‐analyses, and direct future studies aiming to fill identified gaps.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Criminal Sentencing In the Court Communities of South Carolina: An Examination of offender, Judge, and County Characteristics

This study examines the sentencing practices of the court communities of South Carolina. While numerous sentencing studies have examined predictors of sentencing operating at the individual offender level, recent sentencing studies have exhibited a renewed interest in the impact that judges and county context have on sentencing outcomes. Various theories have been developed to explain sentencing processes at each of these three levels--the offender, judge, and county--but these theories have been largely compartmentalized, focusing on the processes operating at one level in isolation. The current study demonstrates that the courts as communities perspective can be used to integrate theories at these three levels of analysis into a unifying theoretical framework. The findings indicate that in many respects the sentencing practices in South Carolina were consistent with findings from other jurisdictions: legal characteristics such as the seriousness of the offense and criminal history of the offender were important predictors of whether he or she was sent to prison and for how long. Case processing factors such as whether an offender pled guilty or was found guilty at trial also had a substantial impact on sentencing outcomes, as did extralegal characteristics such as age, race, and gender. In addition, this study confirms the importance of examining sentencing processes operating on multiple levels of analysis. The findings indicate that significant variation existed between judges on the decision to incarcerate offenders, while the length of sentence imposed against those who were incarcerated was quite uniform among judges. Caseload pressure and experience as a judge were both significant predictors of a judge\u27s incarceration decision; judges with heavier caseloads were less likely to incarcerate, while longer tenured judges were more likely to imprison offenders. The county-level analyses indicated that sentences were remarkably uniform across counties, though some differences existed. Offenders sentenced in counties with heavier caseloads were less likely to be imprisoned, while offenders sentenced in counties that had experienced worsening socioeconomic conditions over the past ten-year period were more likely to be incarcerated. Overall, the picture of South Carolina\u27s court communities that emerged suggests that the state\u27s sentencing structure and legal culture worked to form a relatively close knit court community that was, in some respects, characterized by a statewide legal culture rather than a collection of distinct local legal cultures