The Impact of Neighborhood Status on Imprisonment for Firearm Offenses

Abstract

Burgeoning research on criminal case processing has revealed persistent effects of the race and ethnicity of defendants on case outcomes up to and including imprisonment. But prior studies have devoted relatively little attention to how the characteristics of the communities in which crimes are committed affect imprisonment and antecedent legal outcomes such as bail amount and pretrial detention. Guided by the group threat and focal concerns perspectives, the current study examines the impact of community racial and socioeconomic composition on the likelihood that African American male defendants are sentenced to prison rather than probation for firearm offenses in a large Midwestern city. We find that defendants arrested in neighborhoods with higher proportions of non-poor residents received higher bail and, in turn, spent more time in jail and were more likely to be sentenced to prison than those arrested in lower status neighborhoods. We find no significant effect of neighborhood racial composition on bail, pretrial confinement, or imprisonment. We recommend that the community context of crime receive high priority in future research on the impact of extralegal factors on imprisonment.

Neighborhood Context and the Pretrial Process: Do Defendants Face Adverse Outcomes Due to Their Home Address?

“…Alternatively, court actors may not attempt to “clean up” socially disorganized neighborhoods, but rather, protect affluent communities. J. H. Williams and Rosenfeld (2016) suggested, according to group threat theory, that court actors were protective of higher status communities when threatened with crime, particularly crime committed by members of subordinate groups (Blalock, 1967; Liska, 1992).…”

“…H. Williams and Rosenfeld (2016) suggested, according to group threat theory, that court actors were protective of higher status communities when threatened with crime, particularly crime committed by members of subordinate groups (Blalock, 1967; Liska, 1992). Therefore, defendants residing in affluent communities may have faced harsher treatment in the pretrial process as court actors were more concerned with protecting communities where racially or socioeconomically dominant groups reside (J. H. Williams & Rosenfeld, 2016).…”

“…Second, J. H. Williams and Rosenfeld (2016) assessed the role of tract-level ecological factors on three legal outcomes: bond amount, pretrial detention, and imprisonment.…”

“…Moreover, court actors may deem defendants from a socially disorganized neighborhood more dangerous (Kutateladze et al, 2014; Wooldredge et al, 2016). Alternatively, court actors may treat defendants who reside in socially organized communities more harshly as they are perceived to threaten the social order within affluent communities (J. H. Williams & Rosenfeld, 2016).…”

Neighborhood context and racial/ethnic disparities in judicial processing

“…This study points to underexplored inequalities in access to justice, as victims from advantaged neighborhoods may have greater resources to pursue cases, and local court officials may have political interests to address crime in high-status communities. Williams and Rosenfeld (2016) conclude courts might care about public safety, but some communities "evidently merit" more judicial response than others (p. 396). While novel, the study is limited by its methodological choice and a small, specialized sample of 130 firearms cases.…”