NCJ Number
186469
Journal
Criminal Justice Policy Review Volume: 11 Issue: 2 Dated: June 2000 Pages: 149-184
Date Published
June 2000
Length
36 pages
Annotation
This study considers gender, race, and imprisonment.
Abstract
Dramatic increases in the number of women incarcerated in State and Federal prisons have led some researchers to conclude that differential sentencing of female offenders is a thing of the past. This study addresses the issue using data on offenders convicted of felonies in Chicago, Miami, and Kansas City. In all three jurisdictions, women faced significantly lower odds of incarceration than men. The effect of race was conditioned by gender, but the effect of gender, with only one exception, was not conditioned by race; harsher treatment of racial minorities was confined to men, but more lenient treatment of women was for both racial minorities and whites. The article claims to be uncertain whether the more lenient treatment of female offenders or the harsher treatment of black and Hispanic men reflects judges’ race- and gender-linked beliefs about the types of offenders who are dangerous or who pose a threat to society and thus should be incarcerated. The article suggests future research on, among other aspects of the gender question, conditions and contexts in which the treatment of women differs from that of men. Tables, notes, references