The effect of legal and extra-legal variables on the recommending and granting of a pardon

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.