Sentencing Departures and Female Defendants: Assessing the Effects of Racial and Ethnic Threat

Abstract

Prior research exploring the effects of racial and ethnic threat has largely focused on the threat posed by minority males, with little attention devoted to understanding how threat accounts for variations in punishment among racial and ethnic female defendants. Using 2003-2012 data from Florida sentencing guidelines, we examine the odds of receiving an upward and downward departure among racial and ethnic females. The results suggest that Black and Latino females sentenced in counties with larger Black populations are more likely to receive an upward departure. However, in counties with larger Latino populations, the likelihood of an upward departure decreases for Blacks and Latinos. In addition, racial and ethnic population sizes do not significantly influence the odds of a downward departure.

Plea Bargaining and Trial Decisions in Context: An Examination of Disparities in Punishment

“…The reference category is community supervision. Criminological scholars contend that it is important to distinguish between sentencing decisions to truly understand where disparities exist (Harrington & Spohn, 2007; Johnson, 2006; Warren et al, 2020).…”

Trends in Prison Sentences and Racial Disparities: 20-Years of Sentencing Under Florida’s Criminal Punishment Code

“…Second, for all remaining defendants, we cross-referenced defendants’ last names with U.S. Census data that records the percentage of households reporting Hispanic ethnicity by last name (Word et al 2008) and categorized defendants as “Hispanic” if their last name was majority Hispanic in the Census (i.e., 50% or more). 10 While this approach has limitations, over two decades of research has found it performs adequately and increases the number of Hispanics correctly identified (Abrahamse, Morrison, and Bolton 1994; Boscoe et al 2013; Wei et al 2006; Word and Perkins 1996). Further, several studies assessing sentencing in Florida have used similar approaches (see e.g., Bontrager et al 2005; Omori and Petersen 2020).…”

“…The second dependent variable is whether or not the defendant received a sentence below the lowest permissible sentence. We coded the value of the variable as 1 if either (1) the defendant did not receive a prison sentence but had prison as the lowest permissible sentence per the CPC, or (2) the defendant received a prison sentence shorter than the CPC had prescribed (see e.g., Mitchell et al 2017;Mustard 2001;Warren et al 2020). We use this variable to assess variation over time in the use of mitigated departures, which we hypothesize to be more frequent after 2008.…”

Going Off the Grid: Assessing Sentencing Departures for Individuals Convicted of Sexual Offenses

“…White offenders, females, and older offenders are significantly more likely to receive downward departures, while minorities are less likely (Engen et al, 2003;Johnson, 2005;Johnson et al, 2008;Kramer & Ulmer, 2009). Among a sample of females convicted in Florida courts, minority women were more likely than whites to receive an upward departure (Warren et al, 2020). Individuals that fit crime-specific stereotypes may receive harsher sentences, exemplified by Steffensmeier and Demuth's (2000) observation that Hispanic drug offenders received the harshest penalties and smallest departure benefits compared to white and black drug offenders.…”

“…To date, there is a dearth of research examining sentencing departures among individuals convicted of sexual offenses, and existing studies have been limited to certain offense types (e.g., child pornography) (Kaiser & Spohn, 2014). Further, although previous sentencing research has emphasized the importance of court and community context in departure decisions (e.g., Johnson, 2005;Warren et al, 2020), little attempt has been made to examine the relevance of these factors for departure decisions among individuals convicted of sexual offenses.…”