The Changing Forms of Racial/Ethnic Biases in Sentencing

Abstract

Racial/ethnic discrimination in criminal justice processing has been the subject of heated debate for several decades. This article traces findings from four historical waves of research on sentencing disparities. Particular attention is given to changes in research methodologies and data sources, the social contexts within which research has been conducted, and the various forms that bias can manifest. It explores the change from findings of overt racial/ethnic disparities to more subtle, but still systematic, institutionalized biases. In so doing, the movement toward determinate sentencing is discussed, and the biases identified are partially explained by the need for the system to maintain legitimacy in the face of social change.

The Independent and Joint Effects of Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and Age on Sentencing Outcomes in U.S. Federal Courts

“…The Joint Effects of Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and Age Zatz (1987) argues that the nature of racial and ethnic biases in sentencing has changed over time. As a society that is now more sensitive socially and legally to the equal treatment of different racial/ethnic groups, it is much less likely that large, uniform differences in the treatment of minority groups in the courts will emerge today than in the past.…”

Locating the Judge within Sentencing Research

“…Researchers acknowledge that variations in sentencing outcomes represent the actions of a number of participants in the criminal justice system, not just the sentencing judge (Bushway and Piehl 2001). Court outcomes can mask subtle cumulative inequalities embedded in other processes such as police contact, arrests, prior imprisonment (Zatz 1987) courtroom decision-making processes [that] still presents important opportunities for variation in judicial sentencing to occur' (Johnson 2006: 267). Because presumptive sentencing guidelines 'are filtered through individual courtroom actor interpretations, however, and because they are coloured by informal, locally varying courtroom norms, it is not surprising that they have failed to eliminate judge and court variation in sentencing' (Johnson 2006: 291 Judicial subjectivity Some quantitative research on sentencing patterns attributes unacceptable disparities in large volumes of cases to judicial reliance on stereotypes or bias, which may be unconscious or unintentional (Albonetti 1991;Albonetti 1997;Hagan 1974;Steen et al 2005;Steffensmeier and Demuth 2001;Steffensmeier et al 1998;Wooldredge et al 2005).…”

The Conjunctive Analysis of Case Configurations: An Exploratory Method for Discrete Multivariate Analyses of Crime Data

“…The study of racial differences in sentencing practices has been a focal concern in this research. These studies have often shown that the impact of race and other factors is highly contextual, depending upon the nature of other extra-legal and legal factors (see Chiricos and Crawford 1995;Miethe and Moore 1986;Myers and Talarico 1987;Peterson and Hagan 1984;Stef fensmeier et al 1998;Zatz 1987). By focusing on context-specific effects and multiple causal factors, the study of criminal sentencing is an ideal substantive area for the con junctive analysis of case configurations.…”