RII Track-4:NSF: The Intersection of Social Science and the Law: Plea Bargaining Policies in Law and Practice

在美国法律体系中，大多数刑事案件都是通过认罪来解决的。辩诉是检察官和被告之间的协议，被告通常同意认罪以获得让步（例如，减少指控，减少监禁时间），以避免比审判时被判有罪时受到的更严厉的惩罚。尽管认罪结果在很大程度上是公开的，但产生这些结果的过程却不是。有限的研究探讨了辩诉交易的过程。没有这些信息，被告就无法对认罪协议做出明智的决定，辩诉交易中的任意或有偏见的模式就被隐藏起来，公众就无法获得对当地检察官做出知情投票决定所需的信息。密西西比大学（University of Mississippi）的刑事司法和法律研究系（Department of Criminal Justice and Legal Studies）有一个不断壮大的研究团体，但没有研究人员专注于辩诉交易。通过这项奖学金，PI将前往杜克大学和威尔逊科学与正义中心。私家侦探将发展辩诉交易法律和实践方面的专业知识，与地方检察官办公室合作，跟踪辩诉交易的趋势。PI将把这些经验和专业知识带回母校，在法律和科学的交叉点开发新的跨学科课程，并进一步扩大和发展母校的循证警务和改革中心。这项研究基础设施改善Track-4 EPSCoR研究人员项目将为澳大的一名助理教授提供奖学金。该奖学金将导致在辩诉交易领域的社会科学和法律交叉的多个项目。在两个夏季奖学金期间，PI将与威尔逊中心的一位合作者和更大的团队合作，与当地检察官办公室合作，追踪认罪请求。本研究将探讨认罪提议如何随时间变化，以及这些变化是否与被告、受害者和检察官特征、犯罪类型和检察官办公室政策有关。这项奖学金不仅将扩大PI的专业领域，而且还将使PI在建立成功的研究人员-从业者伙伴关系方面发展新的技能。PI将把这些经验和专业知识带回澳大，为研究生和本科生开发新的法律与科学交叉的跨学科课程。这些课程将汇集来自整个大学的学生，重点是教学生在跨学科团队中工作，并将科学研究成果应用于刑事司法系统。通过与威尔逊中心的合作，PI还将研究一个领先的刑事司法研究中心如何运作，以进一步扩大和发展UM的循证警务改革中心。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

A majority of criminal cases in the U.S. legal system are resolved by pleas. A plea is an agreement between a prosecutor and a defendant in which the defendant typically agrees to plead guilty to receive concessions (e.g., reduced charges, less prison time) to avoid a more severe punishment than they would have received if found guilty at trial. While plea outcomes are largely public, the process that results in those outcomes is not. Limited research has explored the process of plea bargaining. Without this information, defendants cannot make informed decisions about plea offers, arbitrary or biased patterns in plea bargaining are hidden, and the public loses access to information needed to make informed voting decisions about their local prosecutors. The Department of Criminal Justice and Legal Studies at the University of Mississippi (UM) has a growing research community, but there are no researchers focusing on plea bargaining. Through this fellowship, the PI will travel to Duke and the Wilson Center for Science and Justice. The PI will develop expertise in plea bargaining in law and practice, partnering with local prosecutor’s offices to track trends in plea offers. The PI will bring this experience and expertise back to the home institution to develop new interdisciplinary, courses at the intersection of law and science and to further expand and develop the Center for Evidence-Based Policing & Reform at the home institution.This Research Infrastructure Improvement Track-4 EPSCoR Research Fellows project will provide a fellowship to an Assistant Professor at UM. This fellowship will result in multiple projects at the intersection of social science and the law in the domain of plea bargaining. During the two summer fellowship periods, the PI will collaborate with a collaborator and the larger team at the Wilson Center to partner with local prosecutor offices to track plea offers. This research will explore how plea offers change over time and whether these changes are related to defendant, victim, and prosecutor characteristics, crime type, and prosecutor office policies. This fellowship will not only expand the PI’s areas of expertise but also allow the PI to develop new skills in creating successful researcher-practitioner partnerships. The PI will bring this experience and expertise back to UM to develop new, interdisciplinary courses at the intersection of law and science for graduate and undergraduate students. These courses will bring together students from across the university focusing on teaching students to work in interdisciplinary teams and apply the results of scientific research to the criminal justice system. Through working with the Wilson Center, the PI will also study how a leading criminal justice research center operates to further expand and develop the Center for Evidence-Based Policing & Reform at UM.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.