Race and Sentencing: In Search of Fairness and Justice (From Color of Justice: Race, Ethnicity, and Crime in America, P 151-177, 1996, Sabra Horne, ed. - See NCJ-163438)

• NCJ Number: 163444
• Author(s): S Walker; C Spohn; M DeLone
• Date Published: 1996
• Length: 27 pages
• Sale Source: Wadsworth Publishing Co
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This chapter addresses the issue of racial disparity in sentencing.

Abstract

The chapter seeks to determine whether documented racial disparities in sentencing result from direct or indirect racial discrimination or from racial minorities' disproportionate involvement in serious crime. The evidence of racial disparity in sentencing is derived from national statistics on prison admissions and prison populations, and from studies of judges' sentencing decisions. These studies, which are the focus of the chapter, reveal that African American defendants are more likely than whites to be sentenced to prison, and to receive longer terms. Although this and other studies have uncovered evidence of racial discrimination in sentencing, others have found no significant racial differences, or that blacks were sentenced more leniently than whites. Researchers have drawn different conclusions from these varied findings: (1) racial discrimination has declined and the predictive power of race is quite low; (2) discrimination has not declined or disappeared but has become more subtle and difficult to detect; and (3) discrimination against racial minorities is not universal but is confined to certain types of cases, settings, and defendants. While flagrant racism in sentencing has been eliminated, equality under the law has not been achieved; racial minorities continue to suffer discrimination in sentencing. Figures, tables, notes