Racial, Ethnic and Gender Disparities in Sentencing: Evidence from the US Federal Courts

Mustard, David B.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.253712

Cited by 75 publications

(89 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Education has a real effect on crime that is measurably similar to its effects on both arrest and incarceration. 30 This reconciles with the finding of Mustard (2001) that average prison sentences are quite similar across high school graduates and drop outs.…”

supporting

confidence: 56%

“…If the probability of arrest conditional on crime and the probability of incarceration conditional on arrest are larger for less educated individuals, then the measured effect of graduation on arrest is greater than its effect on crime by ln π a (1) − ln π a (0) and its measured effect on imprisonment is larger still by the additional amount ln π i (1) − ln π i (0). Mustard (2001) provides evidence from U.S. federal court sentencing that high school graduates are likely to receive a slightly shorter sentence than otherwise similar graduates, though the difference is quite small (about 2-3%).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Effect of Education on Crime: Evidence from Prison Inmates, Arrests, and Self-Reports

Lochner

Moretti

2004

American Economic Review

1,428

1,122

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This paper estimates the effect of education on participation in criminal activity among men accounting for endogeneity of schooling. Crime is a negative externality with enormous social costs, so if education reduces crime, then schooling may have large social benefits that are not taken into account by individuals.The paper begins by analyzing the effect of schooling on incarceration using Census data and changes in state compulsory attendance laws over time as an instrument for schooling. Changes in these laws have a significant effect on educational achievement, and we reject tests for reverse causality. Moreover, increases in compulsory schooling ages are not correlated with increases in state resources devoted to fighting crime. Both OLS and IV estimates agree and suggest that additional years of secondary schooling reduce the probability of incarceration with the greatest impact associated with completing high school. Differences in educational attainment between black and white men can explain as much as 23% of the black-white gap in male incarceration rates.We corroborate our findings on incarceration using FBI data on arrests that distinguish among different types of crimes. The biggest impacts of education are associated with murder, assault, and motor vehicle theft. We also examine the effect of schooling on self-reported crime in the NLSY and find that our estimates for imprisonment and arrest are caused by changes in criminal behavior and not educational differences in the probability of arrest or incarceration conditional on crime. Given the consistency of our estimates, we calculate the social savings from crime reduction associated with high school graduation among men. The externality is about 14-26% of the private return, suggesting that a significant part of the social return to completing high school for men comes in the form of externalities from crime reduction. * We are grateful to Daron Acemoglu and Josh Angrist for their data on compulsory attendance laws and useful suggestions. We thank

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supporting

confidence: 56%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of Education on Crime: Evidence from Prison Inmates, Arrests, and Self-Reports

Lochner

Moretti

2004

American Economic Review

1,428

1,122

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Several scholars have reported that this alternative specification has increased the explained variance of their sentencing models in guidelines jurisdictions (e.g., Bushway and Piehl, 2001;Engen and Gainey, 2000;Mustard, 2001), and they have also found that the effects sizes of extralegal characteristics like race actually declined as a result (Bushway and Piehl, 2001). However, our dummy coding of criminal history did not increase model fit, and the proportion of explained variance in our sentencing outcome remained virtually unchanged for these non-guidelines data (i.e., Nagelkerke R 2 for both models was .71).…”

Section: The Sentence Length Decisionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conditional Race Disparities in Criminal Sentencing: A Test of the Liberation Hypothesis From a Non-Guidelines State

Hester

Hartman

2016

J Quant Criminol

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Objectives: To test the liberation hypothesis in a judicial context unconstrained by sentencing guidelines.Methods: We examined cross-sectional sentencing data (n = 17,671) using a hurdle count model, which combines a binary (logistic regression) model to predict zero counts and a zero-truncated negative binomial model to predict positive counts. We also conducted a series of Monte Carlo simulations to demonstrate that the hurdle count model provides unbiased estimates of our sentencing data and outperforms alternative approaches.Results: For the liberation hypothesis, results of the interaction terms for race x offense severity and race x criminal history varied by decision type. For the in/out decision, criminal history moderated the effects of race: among offenders with less extensive criminal histories blacks were more likely to be incarcerated; among offenders with higher criminal histories this race effect disappeared. The race x offense severity interaction was not significant for the in/out decision. For the sentence length decision, offense severity moderated the effects of race: among offenders convicted of less serious crimes blacks received longer sentences than whites; among offenders convicted of crimes falling in the most serious offense categories the race effect became nonsignificant for Felony D offenses and transitioned to a relative reduction for blacks for the most serious Felony A, B, and C categories. The race x criminal history interaction was not significant for the length decision.Conclusions: There is some support for the liberation hypothesis in this test from a nonguidelines jurisdiction. The findings suggest, however, that the decision to incarcerate and the sentence length decision may employ different processes in which the interactions between race and seriousness measures vary.

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“…Previous research has found that sentence disparity between black and white offenders and Latino and non-Latino offenders tends to be harsher in drug cases than in nondrug cases (Mustard 2001;Steffensmeier and Demuth, 2000). The increased disparity found in drug cases may be explained, in part, by the liberation hypothesis.…”

Section: The Liberation Hypothesis and Unwarranted Disparities In Drumentioning

confidence: 91%

“…Studies of judicial departures from the Federal Sentencing Guidelines have consistently found that for cases prior to 2005, African-American and Latino offenders were generally less likely than white offenders to receive downward departures (Everett and Wojtkiewicz 2002;Johnson 2003;Kramer and Ulmer 1996;Mustard 2001;Steffensmeier and Demuth, 2000).…”

Section: Focal Concerns and Extralegal Factors Influencing Sentencingmentioning

confidence: 99%

And Justice for All? Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Federal Drug Courts in California and the US

Chen¹,

Nomura²

2015

CJPP

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This study uses data obtained from the United States Sentencing Commission for fiscal years 2003, 2007, and 2012 to examine racial and ethnic disparities in drug crime sentencing. The authors use linear regression to assess disparities in sentence length between African-American and white offenders and Latino and non-Latino offenders and a binary logistic regression model to assess black/white and Latino/non-Latino disparities in the odds of receiving a sentence below the range stipulated by the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.At the national level, the study found significant racial disparities that disadvantage AfricanAmerican offenders in sentence length and odds of a below-range sentence. The study observed no disparities between African-American and white offenders in California for sentence length in 2003 or 2012, or for below-range odds in any of the three years. Nationally, ethnic disparities that disadvantaged Latino offenders were found in both sentence length and odds of a belowrange sentence.In California, Latino offenders tended to receive longer sentences than others in 2003 and 2007 and had lower odds of a sentence below the guideline range in 2012. The years included in this study bracket the Supreme Court case, United States v. Booker, but we found no clear impact of the case with regard to racial or ethnic disparities in sentencing outcomes.2

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Racial, Ethnic and Gender Disparities in Sentencing: Evidence from the US Federal Courts

Cited by 75 publications

References 7 publications

The Effect of Education on Crime: Evidence from Prison Inmates, Arrests, and Self-Reports

The Effect of Education on Crime: Evidence from Prison Inmates, Arrests, and Self-Reports

Conditional Race Disparities in Criminal Sentencing: A Test of the Liberation Hypothesis From a Non-Guidelines State

And Justice for All? Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Federal Drug Courts in California and the US

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