Criminal court responses to the modern opioid and methamphetamine twindemic

Holmes, Bryan; Feldmeyer, Ben; Sun, Diana; Arrigo, Shayna

doi:10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2024.102167

Journal of Criminal Justice

2024

DOI: 10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2024.102167

|View full text |Cite

Criminal court responses to the modern opioid and methamphetamine twindemic

Bryan Holmes,

Ben Feldmeyer,

Diana Sun

et al.

Help me understand this report

Search citation statements

Order By: Relevance

Paper Sections

Select...

Citation Types

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Year Published

2024

Publication Types

Select...

Article1

Relationship

Self Cite0

Independent1

Authors

Journals

Cited by 1 publication

References 65 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

Federal Drug Sentencing and the Overdose Epidemic

Feldmeyer,

Holmes,

Sun

2024

Am J Crim Just

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Research examining how federal courts have responded to the 21st century overdose crisis is limited, and even less is known about how district exposure to overdoses has shaped federal drug sentences. The current study examines how drug sentence lengths are contextualized by district-level overdose death rates across both substance type and race/ethnicity using federal sentencing data, Centers for Disease Control overdose mortality data, and other data on district social and legal characteristics for the 2015-2020 period. Findings reveal that district overdose death rates (especially involving minorities) are associated with slightly shorter drug sentences, net of other factors. In addition, Black-White and Hispanic-White sentence length gaps in drug cases declined in districts with more overdose deaths in part due to higher White sentence lengths, but mostly because minority sentences became shorter as district overdose mortality rates increased. These results suggest that exposure to the overdose crisis has not resulted in greater punitiveness in drug sentence lengths, and if anything, has been tied to leniency especially for minorities. Implications of these results for research on the 21st century overdose crisis, federal court responses to this crisis (especially across race/ethnicity), and for contextual effects in sentencing are discussed.

show abstract

Federal Drug Sentencing and the Overdose Epidemic

Feldmeyer,

Holmes,

Sun

2024

Am J Crim Just

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.

Contact Info

hi@scite.ai

10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614

Henderson, NV 89052, USA

Blog Terms and Conditions API Terms Privacy Policy Contact Cookie Preferences Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information

Made with 💙 for researchers

Part of the Research Solutions Family.

Criminal court responses to the modern opioid and methamphetamine twindemic

Cited by 1 publication

References 65 publications

Federal Drug Sentencing and the Overdose Epidemic

Federal Drug Sentencing and the Overdose Epidemic

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About