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An Analysis Of Prison Sentence Disparity In West Virginia, Deanna J. Shields

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The sentencing of individuals is a very important stage in the Criminal Justice System in the United States. The sentence is the basic decision which determines how, where, and for how long an offender should be dealt with by the state (LaBeff, 1978, p. 1). This study will focus on the question of whether or not sentence disparity exists in West Virginia.

Sentencing processes in our Criminal Justice System today are in keeping with the “Treatment Model” of Corrections . According to Fogel (1975) in We Are The Living Proof, the treatment model has three main goals: (1) diagnosis …