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Race, Ethnicity, Threat, and the Designation of Career Offenders
Justice Quarterly
Abstract
Florida statutes allow for the application of enhanced sentences to defendants designated as “Career Offenders.” The application of these laws is discretionary and as such, prosecutors seek the designation for a fraction of the defendants who qualify. Utilizing Hierarchical Generalized Linear Modeling, this paper examines whether individual attributes, such as race and ethnicity, impact an individual’s likelihood of receiving the Career Offender designation for 13,704 males sentenced to prison between 2002 and 2004. The second-level analysis incorporates county characteristics into the equation and tests whether these predictors have either a direct or a cross-level effect on the relationship. The broad theoretical framework that guides the present research is grounded in the social threat and social control perspective, which argues that minorities on both the individual and aggregate levels may be perceived as threatening in ways that can mobilize or enhance social controls.
... While some empirical support for the social threat perspective has been documented, most research has demonstrated that, in accordance with the liberation hypothesis, racial and ethnic sentencing disparities are greater among less serious offense types, including drug and property crimes. However, with only a few exceptions (Caravelis et al., 2011(Caravelis et al., , 2013Maxwell et al., 2003), there has been little exploration of these competing hypotheses among violent offenses, and what research does exist has been limited by a rather restrictive empirical treatment of crime type, often focusing only on a few broad violent offense categories. As a result, variation in the effects of race/ ethnicity on punishment among offenders sentenced for a wide range of violent crimes remains unexplored. ...
... However, given these conflicting theoretical expectations, it is unclear whether Black-White and Hispanic-White disparities might be more prominent in the sentencing of more serious crimes or less serious crimes. This ambiguity is particularly salient for understanding variations in the conditional effects of crime type among violent offenses given the wide range of criminal acts that are typically characterized as violent as well as the limited research on heterogeneity in racial/ethnic sentencing disparities across different violent crime types (Caravelis et al., 2011(Caravelis et al., , 2013Maxwell et al., 2003;Spohn & Cederblom, 1991). The primary goal of the present study is to provide some additional clarity to these issues. ...
... The research by Caravelis and colleagues (2011) on habitual offender sentencing found that, while racial and ethnic disparities were stronger for property and drug offenses overall, among violent offenses Black defendants were most disadvantaged in assault and robbery cases, though Hispanics were more strongly penalized relative to Whites for rape and battery. However, a later study by these same authors showed that race effects on the career offender designation were present only for battery, while effects of Hispanic ethnicity emerged for both battery and robbery (Caravelis et al., 2013). ...
Within the large body of literature on racial/ethnic disparities in criminal sentencing, some research has demonstrated that these relationships are conditional upon various legally relevant case characteristics, including the type of offense for which the defendants are sentenced. To date, however, few studies have explored the potential moderating effects of different violent crimes. Using data from Florida (N = 186,885), the findings from these analyses indicate that Black-White sentencing disparities are particularly pronounced for manslaughter, robbery/carjacking, arson, and resisting arrest with violence. While Hispanic ethnicity exerts limited effects on sentencing outcomes generally, Hispanics are particularly disadvantaged in manslaughter cases. Relative to minority defendants, White offenders receive harsher sentences for sexual battery, other sex offenses, and abuse of children.
... Indeed, net of such variables as crime rates, economic conditions, and political context, minority defendants have been found to experience especially severe sentencing outcomes in areas characterized by larger Black or Hispanic populations (Bontrager et al., 2005;Ulmer & Johnson, 2004;Wang & Mears, 2015). Other work has shown that the dynamic dimensions of macro-level racial/ethnic context size are key, with larger disparities found among cases disposed in locations with Black or Hispanic communities that experienced recent growth (e.g., Caravelis et al., 2011Caravelis et al., , 2013cf. Wang & Mears, 2010). ...
The presence of inequalities in criminal punishment according to defendants’ race, ethnicity, gender, or socioeconomic status arguably challenges the philosophical and moral foundations of the justice system. Nevertheless, there is clear evidence of disproportional representation according to these offender characteristics in US correctional populations. For this reason, much criminological research over the past 50 years, and especially within the past two decades, has been devoted to examining judicial decision-making at the sentencing stage of criminal justice processing. This chapter provides a brief overview of this literature, which consistently has shown that minority defendants, males, and those of lower socioeconomic status receive disparately harsh penalties, even after a host of other legal and extralegal factors are accounted for. Additionally, we discuss the research exploring the individual- and contextual-level conditions under which these inequalities appear to be more or less pronounced. Following this review, we present the theoretical frameworks which sentencing scholars most often have used to explain these patterns, and we emphasize in particular the potential role of implicit biases held and acted upon by criminal justice actors. We conclude by describing several areas where policy reform might reduce these disparities and ensure a more equitable system of punishment.
... Although evidence of racial/ethnic threat in sentencing is mixed (see Feldmeyer and Cochran 2018), many studies have found support for the theory. Growing minority populations have been linked to greater Black-White (and Hispanic-White) disparities in incarceration, sentence length, departures, and other sentencing outcomes, such as the death penalty or habitual offender designation (Caravelis et al. 2011(Caravelis et al. , 2013Feldmeyer et al. 2015;Jacobs and Carmichael 2001;Jacobs et al. 2005;Johnson 2005;Ulmer and Johnson 2004;Weidner et al. 2005). ...
Economic threat arguments within the broader racial/ethnic threat theory suggest that economic competition between minorities and Whites encourages the majority group to apply formal social controls on minorities to maintain their advantaged positions. Prior sentencing research has given limited attention to economic threat and has only done so using cross-sectional measures, which does not capture changing economic circumstances (a key element of racial/ethnic threat). The goal of this study is to provide a test of economic threat—and racial/ethnic threat more broadly—utilizing time variant measures. To achieve this goal, we use case-level data from the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission (N = 122,666) and county-level data from the United States Census Bureau. Multilevel regression models reveal partial but limited support for economic threat. Specifically, counties with a growing portion of minorities living above the poverty line between 2000 and 2010 had larger minority disadvantages (in comparison to Whites) at incarceration. However, economic threat measures do not significantly contextualize minority–White sentence length differences, while the broader racial/ethnic threat measures do not significantly influence minority–White outcomes at the incarceration or sentencing length decision. The results suggest that economic threat may explain a small but limited portion of the racial disparities identified.
... In federal courts, Hispanic defendants received the longest sentences when they constituted the smallest proportion of sentencing district population (Feldmeyer & Ulmer, 2011). However, percent Latino increased the likelihood that eligible defendants would receive the stigmatizing designation of "career offender" from sentencing judges in Florida (Caravelis, Chiricos, & Bales, 2013). ...
... On the other hand, other studies operate under the assumption that threat effects are specific or "targeted" to minority groups. Sentencing studies, for example, have commonly used cross-level interactions to assess whether Black (or Latino) defendants receive harsher outcomes in areas with higher percentages of Black (or Latino) residents (Caravelis et al., 2011(Caravelis et al., , 2013Feldmeyer & Ulmer, 2011 ;Feldmeyer et al., 2015 ;Light et al., 2014 ;Ulmer & Bradley, 2006 ;Ulmer & Johnson, 2004 ;Wang & Mears, 2015 ;Zane, 2017 ). Likewise, policing studies and public opinion analyses have focused on the impact of racial composition on minority arrests and fear of minority crime (or support for punitiveness toward racial/ethnic minorities) (e.g., see Eitle et al., 2002 ;Johnson et al., 2011;Mears et al., 2013 ;Ousey & Lee, 2008 ;Parker et al., 2005;Pickett et al., 2012 ;Stewart et al., 2015;Stolzenberg et al., 2004 ). ...
... To our knowledge, there are few studies that describe what happens in the phase in which prosecutors decide to charge or not to charge someone for a given crime. Furthermore, from the results of these studies, it is not possible to describe a consistent pattern, with analysis of justice data sets suggesting either some (Radelet and Pierce 1985) or no disparate decisions by prosecutors (Caravelis, Chiricos and Bales 2013). As such, studies that can isolate the effect of race or status in the charge and plea bargain phase are in need. ...
We make trivial decisions every day but, every once in a while, we face
decisions that have a deep impact on others, as they may imply serious harm or the unequal distribution of relevant material or symbolic resources. These socially critical decisions (scd) constitute the core of this chapter. Its main goal is to describe the literature on these scd and present empirical research testing how the contextual salience of a meritocratic norm impacts on these decisions towards low-status group members.
This study aspires to address three important gaps in the Minority Threat literature by using Multilevel Structural Equation Modeling (MSEM) to develop separate perceptual measures of economic and political threat, exploring the indirect path from population characteristics to sentencing severity via perceived threat, and assessing the transference of immigrant threat onto LatinX offenders. The findings support many, but not all, of the theorized propositions. Specifically, threat indicators definitively load into distinguishable economic and political threat measures. Population composition predicts LatinX sentencing outcomes but is mediated by perceived threat. Evidence also suggests immigrant threat is displaced onto LatinX drug defendants. However, the directionality of these paths is more convoluted than theorized. The corresponding theoretical and methodological implications are explored.
Research has focused mainly on whether race and ethnicity influence sentencing outcomes. Much less attention, however, has been paid to where, geographically, disparities occur in the United States. Using the United States Sentencing Commission’s sentencing data from FY2015 to FY2019, we estimated the effects of race and ethnicity on sentencing outcomes across 90 U.S. districts. First, we examined whether race and ethnicity varied across districts. Then we mapped district-level racial and ethnic disparities across the United States. Finally, we examined whether district-level racial and ethnic disparities were spatially correlated, creating hot- or cold spots of disparity. Evidence suggests that disparities are not concentrated within specific regions of the United States and are not spatially correlated. Instead, racial and ethnic disparities seem to be somewhat dispersed geographically. Yet, disparities do seem to concentrate in a relatively small portion of U.S. districts.
This chapter is broadly divided into two sections, the first section will focus on the prison population, including how many people are in prison, their age, sex, gender and ethnicity. This section will explore the worldwide ageing prison population, and the reasons why older prisoners are the fastest growing group in prisons. Sex and gender of prisoners will be explored with the inclusion of prisoners who identify as non-binary or transgender, as well as the act of sex in prison. The last element of this section will introduce the overrepresentation of minoritised ethnicities in prison, and the reasons why this continues in the twenty-first century. The second section will focus on the culture within prisons including substance misuse, violence, sexual violence and gendered violence, as well as the unwritten prison code created by prisoners for prisoners. The discussions will include data and information from England and Wales, the United States and Australia.KeywordsPrisonPrison populationsAgeing prisonersTransgender prisonersMale prisonersWomen prisonersEthnic minorities in prisonSubstance misuseViolence in prisonPrison culture
This study examines whether group threats in the surrounding social context positively moderate disproportionate minority contact at preadjudication detention in the juvenile justice system. To do so, the study utilizes a multijurisdictional sample of 96,619 juvenile court referrals across 139 counties (within four states) to examine a series of group threats—racial, ethnic, economic, and age threat. Due to the nested structure of the data, multilevel models are employed. To test the hypotheses, cross-level interactions between group threats and defendant race and ethnicity are estimated following current best practices for measuring interactions with nonlinear dependent variables. Findings indicate mixed and mostly limited support for the group threat hypotheses, consistent with prior mixed findings. Implications for research and policy are discussed.
Much of the prior literature on criminal court case processing has focused on judicial decisions regarding bail and sentencing. Fewer studies have examined prosecutorial decision-making, particularly charge reduction. Framed within the focal concerns perspective, this paper examined racial and gender disparity in charge reduction and whether disparity existed across different types of charge reduction. Findings demonstrated partial support for the focal concerns perspective with men and minority defendants less likely to receive a severity reduction.Implications for plea negotiation policies are discussed.
This study provides an evaluation of the major policy shift in sentencing practices over the past half-century – namely the shift from indeterminate to determinant sentencing policies and the use of sentencing guidelines. The theoretical literature on courtroom organization and focal concerns informs this evaluation of determinate sentencing practices in Florida. Drawing from prior theoretical and empirical research, hierarchical linear and generalized linear models are estimated to assess courtroom effects on individual level sentencing outcomes. The findings document that location matters when sentenced in Florida. Specifically, the likelihood of being sentenced to prison and the length of sentence varies across counties, even after controlling for individual case and offender characteristics and a variety of contextual characteristics. Additionally, the influence of legal and extra-legal factors on prison in/out and sentence length decisions varies significantly across counties. Several court characteristics, including court size, caseload pressure and trial rate assert direct influence on a county’s likelihood of prison in/out and mean sentence length decisions.
In the context of the criminal justice system, the minority threat hypothesis posits that a growing minority population will exacerbate racial and ethnic disparities as those in power seek to establish social control over the threatening population. Decades of research have produced mixed findings, possibly due to the varied approaches to testing this hypothesis as well as the different populations to whom it is applied. To fully explore the racial and ethnic threat hypotheses for an underexamined population—juveniles transferred to criminal court—and an underexamined outcome—pretrial detention—the present article employs a series of multilevel models to test several versions of the hypothesis. Specifically, the article distinguishes between two measures of minority threat—static and dynamic—and two types of threat effects—diffuse and targeted. Findings indicate limited support for the minority threat hypothesis in all forms. Several interpretations are offered, ranging from consideration of the need for more informed measures of threat to a possible need to modify or abandon the minority threat hypothesis in the context of juvenile and criminal justice processing.
Purpose
The study of racial disparity in the formal application of punishment (i.e., criminal sentencing) is widely recognized as an important area of research. Hundreds of studies have weighed in to determine whether race influences sentence outcomes (e.g., imprisonment and sentence length) and the current work attempts to summarize key aspects of this expansive literature.
Methods
The present assessment relies on 1) prior reviews of the race/sentencing literature and 2) the latest research published since the year 2010 to answer a series of important questions about the race/sentencing relationship.
Results
The preponderance of evidence indicates that race and ethnicity often play a small to moderate role in key sentence outcomes. Relative to white offenders, those who are African American, Latina/o, and Native American often receive harsher sentences, while those who are Asian often receive similar or more lenient sentences. These findings, however, are not universal and tend to be context specific.
Conclusion
The process of criminal sentencing strives for race neutrality but does not always achieve this goal.
This report documents the rates of incarceration for whites, African Americans, and Hispanics, providing racial and ethnic composition as well as rates of disparity for each state. We find the following: in 11 states, 1 in 20 adult black men are in prison; in 5 states, racial disparity is greater than 10-1 black/white; and in 12 states, more than half of prisoners are black.
Using federal court data collected by the U.S. Sentencing Commission for the years 1993-1996, this study examines racial/ethnic differences-white versus black versus white-Hispanic versus black-Hispanic-in sentencing outcomes and criteria under the federal sentencing guidelines. Regression analyses of incarceration and term-length decisions reveal considerable judicial consistency in the use of sentencing criteria for all defendants; however, important racial/ethnic disparities in sentencing emerge. Consistent with theoretical hypotheses, the authors find that ethnicity has a small to moderate effect on sentencing outcomes that favors white defendants and penalizes Hispanic defendants; black defendants are in an intermediate position. Hispanic drug offenders are most at risk of receiving the harshest penalties, and their harsher treatment is most pronounced in prosecutor-controlled guidelines departure cases. These findings highlight both a classic organizational tension noted by Weber and a fundamental dilemma in policy efforts to structure sentencing processes (formal rationality) while allowing for judicial and prosecutorial discretion (substantive rationality). The findings also broaden our view of the continuing significance of race in American society-as a matter confronting not only blacks but also Hispanics and perhaps other ethnic groups as well.
Complaint filing is a critical stage in the prosecution of a case, for here prosecutors decide which cases will go on for adjudication by the courts. A significant percentage of sexual assault cases never get beyond this stage in the criminal justice process. This paper examines prosecutorial accounts for sexual assault case rejection. A central feature of these accounts is discrediting the victim's rape allegation with the techniques of finding discrepancies in the victim's story and assuming ulterior motives for reporting the assault. The resources that prosecutors use to develop these techniques are official reports and records, typifications of rape-relevant behavior, and knowledge of the victim's personal life and criminal connections. Prosecutors' accounts reveal the indigenous logic of prosecutors' decisions to reject cases and the organizational structure in which these decisions are situated.
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 uses data on offenders convicted of felonies in Chicago, Miami, and Kansas City to address this issue. The authors find no evidence to support this “gender neutrality” hypothesis. In all three jurisdictions, women face significantly lower odds of incarceration than do men. The results also reveal that the effect of race is conditioned by gender but the effect of gender, with only one exception, is not conditioned by race; harsher treatment of racial minorities is confined to men but more lenient treatment of women is found for both racial minorities and Whites.
Recent research, drawing on the conflict perspective, has examined the effect of the racial/economic composition of macrosocial units on the capacity for crime control (arrest rates). The results show that there is considerable variation in arrest rates between cities and that racial/economic composition substantially affects them, independently of reported crime rates. The effects are specified by type of arrest (property and personal) and race of offender (white and non-white).
In this study of prosecutors' charging decisions in sexual assault cases, we test the hypothesis that the effect of victim characteristics is conditioned by the relationship between the victim and the suspect. We categorize the victim/suspect relationship as one involving strangers, acquaintances/relatives, or intimate partners, and we examine the effect of victim, suspect, and case characteristics on charging decisions in each type of case. The results of our analysis reveal that the effect of victim characteristics, with one exception, is confined to cases involving acquaintances and intimate partners. In these types of cases, prosecutors were less likely to file charges if there were questions about the victim's character or behavior at the time of the incident. In contrast, the victim's reputation and behavior did not affect charging in cases involving strangers; in those types of cases, prosecutors were more likely to file charges if the suspect used a gun or knife or if the victim was white. We conclude that stereotypes of “real rapes” and “genuine victims” continue to influence the charging decision in at least some types of sexual assault cases.
The role of the prosecutor in criminal punishments remains a fervent topic of criminal justice discourse, yet it has received limited empirical attention, particularly for U.S. Attorneys in federal district courts. The present study examines charging and sentencing outcomes in federal courts by combining charging data from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts with sentencing data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission. The merger of these data sources overcomes limitations of each and provides for an investigation of the causes and consequences of federal prosecutorial charging decisions. Our investigation focuses on the subtle but important influences that extralegal offender characteristics exert in this process. Results indicate that some extralegal characteristics are intricately tied to the likelihood of charge reductions. Moreover, these effects sometimes interact to produce compound disadvantages for some groups of offenders. Our analyses are guided by contemporary theoretical perspectives on courtroom decision‐making.
As legislatures proliferate novel “enhancements” to criminal sentencing, such as “three-strikes” and related provisions, and as criminologists debate their effects, the role of existing enhancements, such as habitual offender statutes, has received little empirical attention. This article explores the effect of race in the decision to prosecute and sentence eligible defendants as “habitual” offenders. During FY 1992–93, 9,690 males admitted to prison in Florida were statutorily eligible (two prior felony convictions or one prior violent felony conviction) for sentencing as “habitual” offenders. Approximately 20% received that disposition. They will serve at least 75% of their enhanced sentence as compared with the state average of about 40%. Logistic regression, controlling for prior record, crime seriousness, and other relevant factors, shows a significant and substantial race effect. The disadvantage of black defendants is particularly strong for drug offenses and for property crimes that have relatively high victimization rates for whites (larceny, burglary). Race is less consequential for violent and weapons-related crimes. Race effects are more often significant in sentencing contexts that are low in terms of percent black, racial income inequality, drug arrest rates, and violent crime rates. The relevance of these findings for a “racial threat” interpretation of sentencing outcomes is discussed.
This study explores the effects of race and gender on habitual offender sentencing in Florida. The sample consists of 1,103 female offenders admitted to the Florida Department of Corrections in fiscal year 1992–1993 who were eligible for sentencing under the habitual offender statute. Controlling for prior record, crime seriousness, crime type, and sentencing county contextual variables through logistic regression analysis, defendant race was found to be a relevant and statistically significant factor in the enhanced sentencing of female offenders. This factor was most noticeable with black female drug offenders and under structural contexts that were “high,” i.e., the percent of the population black, drug arrest rates, and violent crime rates. The race effects found with this sample of female offenders were often stronger than those in the Crawford et al. 1998 study of 9,960 eligible male offenders in Florida. The relevance of these findings is discussed.
A recent study of sentencing decisions in Pennsylvania (Steffensmeier et al., 1998) identified significant interrelationships among race, gender, age, and sentence severity. The authors of this study found that each of the three offender characteristics had significant direct effects on sentence outcomes and that the characteristics interacted to produce substantially harsher sentences for one category of offenders—young black males. This study responds to Steffensmeier et al.'s (1998:789) call for “further research analyzing how race effects may be mediated by other factors.” We replicate their research approach, examining the intersections of the effects of race, gender, and age on sentence outcomes. We extend their analysis in three ways: We examine sentence outcomes in three large urban jurisdictions; we include Hispanics as well as blacks and test for interactions between ethnicity, age, and gender; and we test for interactions between race/ethnicity, gender, and employment status. Our results are generally—although not entirely—consistent with the results of the Pennsylvania study. Although none of the offender characteristics affects the length of the prison sentence, each has a significant direct effect on the likelihood of incarceration in at least one of the jurisdictions. More importantly, the four offender characteristics interact to produce harsher sentences for certain types of offenders. Young black and Hispanic males face greater odds of incarceration than middle-aged white males, and unemployed black and Hispanic males are substantially more likely to be sentenced to prison than employed white males. Thus, our results suggest that offenders with constellations of characteristics other than “young black male” pay a punishment penalty.
This study uses data on Pennsylvania sentencing practices to compare the sentence outcomes of white, black, and Hispanic defendants. Besides the overall more lenient treatment of white defendants, our main finding is that Hispanic defendants are the defendant subgroup most at risk to receive the harshest penalty. This pattern is held across all comparisons—i.e., for both the in/out and term-length decisions and for both drug and nondrug cases. These findings are consistent with the “focal concerns” framework on sentencing and with hypotheses drawn from the writings on prejudice and inter group hostility suggesting that the specific social and historical context facing Hispanic Americans will exacerbate perceptions of their cultural dissimilarity and the “threat” they pose.
Prior theory and research on sentencing oversimplify the role of race, gender and age in judicial decision making. In this article we present a “focal concerns” theory of judicial decision making to frame hypotheses regarding the effects on sentencing of these social statuses, both singly and in combination. Analyzing statewide sentencing outcomes in Pennsylvania for 1989–1992, we find that, net of controls: (1) young black males are sentenced more harshly than any other group, (2) race is most influential in the sentencing of younger rather than older males, (3) the influence of offender's age on sentencing is greater among males than females, and (4) the main effects of race, gender, and age are more modest compared to the very large differences in sentencing outcomes across certain age-race-gender combinations. These findings demonstrate the importance of considering the joint effects of race, gender, and age on sentencing, and of using interactive rather than additive models.
In Pennsylvania, the imposition of mandatory minimum sentences presents an important opportunity to examine relatively “pure” prosecutorial discretion over sentencing outcomes. The authors present a multilevel analysis of the prosecutorial decision to apply a mandatory minimum among mandatory eligible offenders sentenced for drug crimes or as repeat, “three-strikes” offenders. They find that prosecutors’ decisions to apply the mandatory minimum are significantly affected by the type and characteristics of offenses and guideline sentence recommendations, prior record, mode of conviction, and gender. They also find that Hispanic males are more likely to receive mandatory minimums and that Black-White differences in mandatory application increase with county percentage Black. The authors frame and interpret their analysis and findings in light of the uncertainty reduction theory of prosecutorial discretion, the view of courts as communities, and an integrative focal concerns perspective on criminal justice decision-making.
We develop a conceptual model articulating the mechanisms by which racial threat is theorized to affect social control, focusing specifically on the influence of the relative size of the black population on the likelihood that the police will arrest a black citizen suspected of a violent criminal offense. A multilevel analysis of 145, 255 violent crimes reported to police in 182 cities during 2000 shows only qualified support for racial threat theory. Controlling for the amount of race-specific crime reported to police, our findings reveal that black citizens actually have a lower probability of arrest in cities with a relatively large black population. This finding tends to cast doubt on the validity of the racial threat hypothesis. No evidence buttresses the claim that economic competition between whites and blacks affects arrest probabilities. However, results show that in cities where racial segregation is more pronounced blacks have a reduced risk sof being arrested relative to whites. Crimes involving black offenders and white victims are also more apt to result in an arrest in cities that are racially segregated. These findings support the view that racial segregation is an informal mechanism to circumscribe the threat of potentially volatile subordinate populations.
Criminal sentencing is, along with arresting and prosecuting, among the most important of formal social control decisions. In this study we use hierarchical modeling to test hypotheses about contextual level influences and cross level interaction effects on local court decisions. Most of the explanatory “action,” our analysis shows, is at the individual case level in criminal sentencing. We also find evidence that local contextual features–such as court organizational culture, court caseload pressure, and racial and ethnic composition–affect sentencing outcomes, either directly or in interaction with individual factors. We conclude by discussing theoretical implications of our findings, and how our study points out some dilemmas among civil rights, local autonomy and organizational realities of criminal courts.
Preface Minority Group Threat, Crime, and Policing Social Context in the National and Historical Perspective Minority Visibility and Social Control Across the Nation: Variations in Hostility and Social Control The Changing National Perspective: A Decade of Transition in Large Industrial Cities Mid-Sized Cities at the End of the Decade A Decade's Change in Southern and Western Cities Policing, Minorities, and Social Context: Conclusions and Implications Appendix Index
In this paper the author analyzes the exercise of prosecutorial discretion to "go forward" with charges. The author examines the relationship between sources of uncertainty in decision making and the initial decision to begin the criminalization process. Organizational theory bearing on uncertainty avoidance provides the perspective guiding the analysis. The author uses a maximum likelihood procedure to estimate the net effects on the probability of prosecution of a set of variables measuring uncertainty emerging within the backdrop of prosecutorial concern for obtaining a conviction at a jury trial.
This article develops a macrolevel framework on inequality and juvenile court processing by integrating ideas drawn from conflict theory, research on urban poverty, and recent race-specific trends in drug enforcement. Using 1985 data for more than 200 U.S. counties, we examine how structural context-especially racial inequality and the concentration of "underclass" poverty-influence the formal petitioning, predisposition detention, and out-of-home placement of juveniles. The data are generally consistent with the hypothesis that underclass blacks are viewed as a threatening group to middle-class populations and are thus subjected to increased control by the juvenile justice system. We discuss the implications of our results for a better understanding of the relationship between larger societal forces of increasing poverty and racial inequality and local systems of formal social control.
The decision to charge is a critical stage in the processing of sexual assault cases, as many cases do not proceed beyond this stage. Frohmann (1991) examined prosecutorial justifications for case rejection and concluded that prosecutors construct typifications of credible victims and rape relevant behavior in deciding whether to file charges in sexual assault cases. We use data on 1997 sexual battery cases cleared by arrest in Miami, Florida, as well as information gleaned from interviews with a sample of the attorneys who handled these cases, to replicate and extend Frohmann's work. Although our findings are consistent with Frohmann's assertion that charging decisions primarily reflect the prosecutor's assessment of the likelihood of conviction, they also suggest that this assessment is based on factors other than typifications of rape and rape victims. In a substantial number of the cases examined for this study, the decision to reject charges could be traced to the victim's failure to appear for a prefile interview, refusal to cooperate in the prosecution of the case, or admission that the charges were fabricated. We also found that the decision to file charges was based on a combination of case and victim characteristics, but that cases involving a victim and suspect who were acquainted, related, or intimate partners were more likely than those involving a victim and suspect who were strangers to be prosecuted. We conclude that prosecutors' charging decisions are guided by a set of "focal concerns" (Steffensmeier, et al. 1998) that revolve around reducing uncertainty and securing convictions and that incorporate beliefs about real rapes and legitimate victims.
This paper seeks to determine whether race differences in sentencing are contingent on who is being sentenced and where that sentencing occurs. Using data from Georgia, we find that certain legally-relevant factors and the racial composition of the county condition the influence of race. However, there is no evidence that blacks are punished more harshly than whites in contexts where their criminality may appear more threatening. Indeed, certain white offenders are treated more harshly than their black counterparts. We conclude with a discussion of the importance of both structural and cultural contexts for understanding the relationship between race and sentencing.
Although sentencing research has expanded over the past decade, very little has been published in the area of habitual-offender statutes. The current research revisits and updates two of the few studies that focused on these sentencing enhancements. Crawford, Chiricos, and Kleck (1998), and later Crawford (2000), examined the application of the habitual-offender sentence enhancement for offenders in Florida in 1992 and 1993. Consistent with the prior research, this study includes individual-level as well as county-level variables and also updates the analysis by examining more recent data, including a measure of ethnicity, and using hierarchical general linear modeling to simultaneously model individual-level data nested within counties. The racial threat perspective serves as the backdrop to explain racial and ethnic disparity in punishment decisions based on contextual as well as individual threat. The findings indicate that racial and ethnic sentence disparity exists when habitual-offender status is invoked in Florida.
The primary objective of the federal sentencing guidelines is to reduce judicial discretion and unwarranted disparity by prescribing like sentences for like defendants convicted of the same offense. The guidelines are based on real-offense sentencing, which links relevant conduct or actual offense behavior to the sentencing process. This study analyzes the indictment stage where the charging decisions by the federal prosecutor in conjunction with relevant conduct are first conceived. Our major finding is that the number of counts within the indictment has a statistically significant effect on the length of sentence, the magnitude of the discount for downward departures, and the ratio of the difference between the presumptive sentence and the sentence discount. The number of counts has no effect on the offender’s likelihood of receiving either a downward departure or a substantial assistance departure. This suggests that offenders convicted of the same crime do not necessarily receive the same sentence.
Despite an extensive literature on differential justice, relatively few studies have examined whether inequities occur in legal decisions that precede sentencing. This becomes a problem given the vast majority of criminal cases prosecuted in the United States are disposed of through guilty pleas to reduced charges. In an effort to address this issue, the current study examined legal, status, and resource determinants of both charge reductions and final dispositions in cases of burglary and robbery in two U.S. jurisdictions. While the analysis showed that social status influenced the acquisition of private counsel and pretrial release, resources that tended to favor defendants at final disposition, the expectation that charge reductions might be especially receptive to status influences was not supported. Only one direct status effect on charge reductions was obtained and no indirect influences appear to have been operating. Further, contrary to the dominant thesis, the direct effects of race/ethnicity on charge reductions and final dispositions point to less severe responses to minorities, responses that we suggest may have been the result of initial overcharging in cases of minority defendants.
Recently there has been a call for research that explores decision-making at stages prior to sentencing in the criminal justice process. Particularly research is needed under a determinate sentencing system where judicial dispositions are usually restricted by guidelines, which increases the importance of earlier decision-making stages. As an answer to this call, and in an attempt to build on currents studies on the effects of departures as an intervening mechanism, and a source of unwarranted disparity, this study explores federal sentencing data on offenders convicted of crack-cocaine and powder-cocaine offenses. Although decision-making of all criminal justice actors generally, and prosecutors specifically, has been the subject of much research, studies have yet to resolve the nature and outcome of their "autonomous" discretion. This autonomy becomes especially salient regarding prosecutorial decisions for substantial assistance departures. In deciding who receives a substantial assistance departure, the prosecutor has carte blanche power.
In this paper, using a sample of 5,272 domestic violence cases processed through the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office between July 1, 1999 and December 31, 2000, we analyze the predictors of victim support for official action. We test the impact of victim and offender characteristics, situational variables, and official behavior on whether it was the victim or some third party who called for assistance, whether the victim desired the arrest, and whether the victim was willing to prosecute. The multiple significant effects found include race/ethnicity, gender, cohabitation, co-parenthood, attack severity, victim injury, prior incidents, reporting of prior incidents, presence of a protective order, provision of victim services, victim substance use, and suspect injury. Especially important from a policy perspective is that prosecutor charging practice (i.e., filing as a felony rather than a misdemeanor or violation of probation) was negatively associated with levels of victim support for prosecution.
Although the social context of a court is often claimed to be important to understanding the effect of the offender's race on punishment decisions, the links between context and racial disparities in punishment decisions are not well understood. I propose and test four hypotheses involving elements that may link social context to racial disparities in punishment decisions: urbanization, racial threat, economic threat, and crime control. I test these four hypotheses with sentencing data from the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing for the period 1991 to 1994. The main findings are as follows: (1) punishment severity varies by court jurisdiction, even after controlling for offender and case characteristics; (2) racial disparities vary by court jurisdiction, with controls for other offender and case characteristics; (3) measures of social context explain little of the contextual variation in punishment decisions for all offenders; and (4) measures of social context do not explain racial disparities in punishment decisions. Thus, I find convincing evidence of contextual variation in punishment decisions, but typical indicators of social context do not explain these variations.
We examine in this article the relationship between economic inequality and rates of violent crime of blacks and whites, using
SMSA-level data for 1980 as compiled from raw arrest data on index violent crimes in the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports and from
the 1980 census. The analysis is disaggregated by race and uses alternative measures of inequality (and poverty) to provide
more theoretically appropriate indicators of income inequality, including measures of within-race inequality in addition to
measures of overall inequality and between-race inequality. Controls are included for racial composition and other variables
related to race and crime. We find that the effects of inequality differ sharply for blacks and whites. Inequality strongly
affects white violence rates — high inequality is associated with high white arrest rates for the violent crimes. However,
inequality has a weak effect on black violence rates. The theoretical and research implications of our findings are discussed.
A central and recurring concern in the sociology of criminal law is racial disparity in imprisonment—blacks are much more
likely than whites to be imprisoned for crimes. Sociological theories disagree over the sources of imprisonment disparity.
Prior research has ignored the social, economic, and legal characteristics of states and regions of the country that may contribute
to disparity. The present study finds differences in the social standing of blacks relative to whites that explain substantial
and statistically significant variation in racial disparity in imprisonment across states after racial differences in involvement
in crime are controlled. Blacks are more likely than whites to be imprisoned in states where the black population is a small
percentage of the total population and predominantly urban. The implications of these findings for a structural theory of
punishment are discussed.
Durkheimian, Marxist, and Weberian theories provide contrasting views of the influences of the social structure of areas and communities on law and the legal process. In light of these theories, we examine how various aspects of community social structure differentially affect criminal punishments administered to whites and nonwhites. Using county-level data from the state of Washington, we regress white and nonwhite rates of imprisonment on measures of crime and arrest rates, county social structure, and court workload. This analysis indicates that nonwhites—but not whites—are particularly likely to be sentenced to prison in urbanized counties and in counties with relatively large minority populations. We conclude by presenting material from interviews with justice officials which sheds light on the perceptual and political processes that link structural conditions to patterns of criminal punishment.
Proponents of traditional conflict theory have argued that minority races receive harsher justice system dispositions because they lack the power and resources to ensure equal treatment. Hawkins’ (1987) proposed revision of this model predicts minoritv races will receive harsher dispositions in social contexts in which their power threatens the dominant group's hegemony.
This study uses juvenile justice processing data from the 32 Florida SMA counties to examine these competing models. The effects of three measures of blacks’ power are considered—the relative size of black and white population, the proportion of blacks who are poor, and the average black/white income gap—on differential treatment of black and white juveniles at three court processing stages. A higher proportion of whites in the population is associated with harsher dispositions for black youths. This result is consistent with traditional conflict theory. The other two measures have no differential racial effect on disposition severity.
Recently, Liska, Lawrence, and Benson (1981) and Greenberg, Kessler, and Loftin (1985) have examined the effects of static measures of social and economic characteristics of cities on changes in police force size. In brief, they report that these measures have small and inconsistent effects on changes in police force size during the previous three decades. This study extends this research by examining the influence of static and dynamic measures of social structure on the change in police force size among cities during the 1970s. The results indicate that three dynamic measures of social structure significantly affect change in police size and thereby support the contention that the failure to control for processes of change may have led to specification bias in previous attempts to model changes in police size.
Recent research has compared male and female trends in violent offending in Uniform Crime Report (UCR) arrest data with similar trends derived from victims' reports in the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and has concluded that the two data sources produce contrary findings. In this article, we reassess this issue and draw different conclusions. Using pooled National Crime Survey (NCS) and NCVS data for 1973 to 2005, we find that the female-to-male offending rate ratios for aggravated assault, robbery, and simple assault have increased over time and that the narrowing of the gender gaps is very similar to patterns in UCR arrest data. In addition, we find that these patterns are in part caused by larger decreases in male than female offending after the mid-1990s and not by recent increases in violent offending rates among females. We conclude that changes in the gender gaps in aggravated assault, robbery, and simple assault are real and not artifacts; therefore, these changes deserve serious attention in future research. We conclude with a discussion of several hypotheses that might account for a narrowing of the gender gap in nonlethal violent offending over time.
Using data from the Baldus, Woodworth, and Pulaski (1990) study of Georgia's death penalty system, we examine the influence of victim gender in death penalty cases. Furthermore, to improve our understanding of the meaning of victim gender, we consider 1) the joint effects of victim gender and victim race, 2) victimization characteristics that might explain victim gender effects, and 3) the impact of victim gender at different decision-making stages in the death penalty case process. We find that both victim gender and race are associated with death sentencing outcomes and that an examination of the joint effects of victim gender and race reveals considerable differences in the likelihood of receiving a death sentence between the most disparate victim race–gender groups. In particular, it seems that black male victim cases are set apart from all others in terms of leniency afforded to defendants. We also show that the effect of victim gender is explained largely by gender differences in the sexual nature of some homicides. An examination of prosecutorial and jury decision making reveals that although victim gender has little impact on prosecutorial decisions, it has a meaningful impact on jury decisions.
Although a substantial number of researchers have studied charge reductions taking place within the context of guilty plea negotiations, few have focused on estimating the determinants of charge reductions taking place at the initial screening decision. The prosecutor's decision to reduce original felony charges to a misdemeanor has serious social, legal, and economic consequences for the suspect. This paper presents a model of the variables affecting the likelihood of such a reduction in burglary and robbery offenses. Drawing from Littrell's principled charging perspective and earlier research on labeling, the analysis involves estimating logistic regression equations specifying both main and interaction effects of the suspect's gender and race and variables related to suspect character, case seriousness, and legal seriousness. Partial support is found for Littrell's perspective.
Designation as a “Habitual Offender” is an enhanced form of punishment which unlike, “Three Strikes” or “10-20-Life,” is entirely
discretionary. We use Hierarchical Generalized Linear Modeling to assess the direct effects of race and Latino ethnicity on
the designation of Habitual Offenders as well as the effect of both static and dynamic indicators of racial and ethnic threat
on those outcomes. Our data include 26,740 adults sentenced to prison in Florida between 2002 and 2004 who were statutorily
eligible to be sentenced as Habitual. The odds of receiving this designation are significantly increased for black and Latino
defendants as compared to whites, though race and ethnicity effects vary substantially by crime type, being strongest for
drug offenses and negligible for violent crimes. Static measures of group level threat (% black and % Latino) have no cross-level
effect on sentencing by race or Latino ethnicity. However, increasing black population over time increases the odds of being
sentenced as Habitual for both black and Latino defendants. Increasing Latino population increases the odds of Habitual Offender
sentencing for Latinos, but decreases it for blacks. The prospect of engaging dynamic as opposed to static measures of threat in future criminal justice and other social control research is discussed.
KeywordsDynamic threat–Judicial outcomes–Race and ethnicity–Social contexts–Hierarchical modeling
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