A Multilevel Test of Minority Threat Effects on Sentencing

Recent Developments and New Directions in Sentencing Research

“…Hispanic/white disparity was greatest in districts where Hispanics were least numerous, but there was no significant Hispanic/white disparity in districts where Hispanics were most numerous (Feldmeyer & Ulmer, 2011; see also Helms, 2009). Yet another pattern was found by Wang and Mears (2010) using SCPS data. They found curvilinear 14 ULMER effects of percent black on black sentencing disadvantage that are consistent with Blalock's (1967) political threat hypothesis, but did not find such a pattern for Hispanic sentencing.…”

“…present a very useful discussion of the merits and demerits of two-part models (modeling incarceration and sentence length separately), tobit, and Heckman two-step corrections with ordinary least squares (OLS) in addressing problems of censoring and/or selection surrounding the incarceration and sentence length decisions. Several researchers have also demonstrated the usefulness of using multinomial logistic regression to predict different types of incarceration, such as county jail vs. state prison, either in a individual-level (Holleran & Spohn, 2004), or multilevel context (Kramer & Ulmer, 2009;Wang & Mears, 2010). In addition, Britt (2009) proposes quantile regression as an interesting alternative for assessing variation in the effects of predictors of interest (legally relevant, extralegal, case processing, etc.)…”

“…Such research should also investigate whether there are non-linear effects or tipping points for the effects of black and Hispanic populations, at which these contextual features might dampen rather than aggravate racial or ethnic sentencing disparities (see Britt, 2000;Feldmeyer & Ulmer, 2011;Wang & Mears, 2010). Alternately, minority sentencing disadvantage might concentrate in jurisdictions where particular minorities are least numerous, as was found for Hispanic populations in federal districts by Feldmeyer and Ulmer (2011), or where minorities are most numerous, as suggested by some scenarios envisioned by Blalock (1967).…”

Contemporary issues of race/ethnicity, offending behavior, and justice responses

“…These results continue to suggest the presence of racial disparities in incarceration and sentence length decisions in a state with no sentencing guidelines and a partially indeterminate sentencing structure. Race effects emerged even after various contextual measures that have been found to predict criminal sentencing in prior research were considered (Britt 2000;Johnson 2005;Wang and Mears 2010).…”

Race: Prespectives and Crime

“…Race/ethnicity has generated an enormous amount of research and debate in criminology (e.g., Leiber, 2003;Wang and Mears, 2010). One factor that underlies much of this activity is the overrepresentation of minority youth and in particular, Blacks, in both the criminal and juvenile justice systems.…”