The eye of the beholder: Increased likelihood of prison sentences for people perceived to have Hispanic ethnicity.

Abstract

Objectives: Hispanic individuals are a growing proportion of the general and carceral populations in the United States. This study examined the relationship between the type of sentences (prison, jail/probation) given to White, non-Hispanic individuals and to similarly situated individuals who were perceived to be Hispanic (any race) or perceived to be White but, based on validated estimates, self-identified as Hispanic. Hypotheses: Psychological theory indicates that, for group-based stereotypes and attitudes to impact decisions, decisionmakers must first identify and categorize target individuals as members of the relevant group. Following this theory, we predicted that individuals perceived by members of the criminal justice system to be Hispanic will be more likely to be sentenced to prison than similarly situated individuals perceived to be White. However, sentences of individuals predicted to have been misperceived as White but to self-identify as Hispanic will not differ from those of individuals accurately perceived as White. Method: We analyzed official state records of more than 220,000 unique sentencing decisions for nearly 200,000 individuals under state correctional supervision between 2005 and 2018, including demographic characteristics, statutory crime-seriousness and criminal-history scores from state sentencing guidelines, and sentencing outcomes. Results: Even after controlling for crime severity and criminal history, we found that individuals who were labeled as Hispanic in criminal justice records were nearly twice as likely to be sentenced to prison as those who were labeled as White (odds ratio [OR] = 1.95, 95% confidence interval [CI] [1.86, 2.04]). By comparison, individuals who were labeled in criminal justice records as White but, on the basis of validated estimates, were predicted to self-identify as Hispanic had the same likelihood of being sentenced to prison as individuals who were accurately perceived to be White (OR = 1.01, 95% CI [0.94, 1.07]). Conclusions: Results suggest that ethnic stereotypes or attitudes regarding Hispanic individuals may negatively impact criminal sentencing decisions regarding people perceived as Hispanic by actors in the legal system. Public Significance StatementThe results of this study suggest that judges may be substantially more likely to sentence a person to prison rather than to jail and/or probation if they believe that the person is Hispanic as opposed to White, even in cases where a Hispanic person and a White person committed the same crime and had the same criminal record. The negative impact of perceived ethnicity on sentencing suggests that stereotypes and attitudes regarding Hispanic individuals may increase the severity of sentences, with significant negative consequences for defendants, their families, and their communities.

Racial justice in psycholegal research and forensic psychology practice: Current advances and a framework for future progress.

“…Kenthirarajah et al, (2023) provide both archival and experimental evidence that Black defendants with first names that are stereotypically Black (e.g., Tyrone or Darius) rather than stereotypically White (e.g., Tyler) receive meaningfully longer sentences for criminal behavior. In a related vein, Girvan and Marek (2023) examine how sentencing outcomes for individuals who self-identify as Hispanic (Latine) vary on the basis of how their ethnicity is recorded in legal records. Defendants who were recorded as Hispanic in legal records received harsher sentences than defendants identified as White.…”

Six Ways of Fairness

“…In Girvan and Marek (2023), my collaborator and I analyzed this sample of criminal sentencing decisions to determine whether race and ethnicity of the individuals sentenced impacted the likelihood of their being sentenced to prison as compared to jail/probation. To summarize, psychological theory indicates that, for group-based biases to impact decisions, decision-makers must first identify and categorize target individuals as members of the relevant group.…”

“…The empirical thought experiment takes a step further from the findings in Girvan and Marek (2023) by asking: What would it look like to use PHIs to attempt to correct for the observed disparity? However, the PHI approach uses past estimates of disparities in ratings r0 to create a corrective function, v, to be applied to future ratings, r1-n.…”

“…To assess whether there was an impermissible difference in sentences of USOs, r0, based on the perceived race and ethnicity of the individuals being sentenced, I fit a logistic regression model that includes the legally relevant factors that should, under the law, determine the type of sentence: Indicators of the individuals' offense history and offense severity. To this I added the sentenced individuals' sex and race/ethnicity, described above (see Girvan & Marek, 2023). To account for potential impacts of lack of independence, pvalues and confidence intervals for coefficients were calculated using clusterrobust standard errors.…”

“…The goal of this paper is to conduct an empirically grounded thought experiment into the viability of PHIs in practice. In particular, building on the findings reported in Girvan and Marek (2023), I use PHIs to correct for racial and ethnic disparities in the extent to which White and Hispanic individuals are sentenced to prison, as compared to jail or probation, for violations of criminal laws. In doing so, I apply the empirical requirements for PHIs discussed by , along with an additional normative limitation on steps one may take to correct for disparities based on protected attributes, and discuss the implication for PHIs and flexibility in the specified conditions in practice.…”