Disparities In Incarceration Research Articles

Bleak Housing and Black Americans: Some Problems in the Use of Racial Disparities in Incarceration as a Reason for Reform

In this extended critical review of Michelle Alexander's popular work, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness, the author, a student and current prisoner in the Monroe Correctional Complex in the state of Washington, calls our attention to the overlooked severity of penal institutions and the role of U.S. punishment practices in reproducing marginality. The author suggests doing so will provide the foundation for the kind of “cultural work” needed to reform criminal justice policy, moving academic and activist critiques of mass incarceration beyond the pragmatist rationalities that threaten to exacerbate the inequalities they seek to remedy.

Latino Crime and Latinos in the Criminal Justice System: Trends, Policy Implications, and Future Research Initiatives

With exponential growth in the Latino population over the past decade, both social scientists and politicians have directed their attention toward understanding Latino behavior(s) ranging from purchasing power and marketing to voting. Less is known, however, about the extent to which Latino population growth might be associated with patterns of criminal justice or violent criminal outcomes. One objective of this research is to provide a contemporary overview of the Latino experiences with the criminal justice system by highlighting racial/ethnic disparities in incarceration and sentencing. Using racial-/ethnic-specific homicide victimization data provided by the Centers for Disease Control, we also examine the impact of Latino concentration on levels of group-specific homicide, both regionally and nationally. Results from our negative binomial multivariate analyses indicate that the concentration of Latinos tends to be associated with lower levels of homicide victimization, a finding that holds across racial/ethnic groups and geographic specification. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of these findings with an eye toward future research in this area.

Overview of: “Racial disparity in the wake of the Booker/Fanfan decision

Research Summary The U.S. Sentencing Commission (USSC) released a report in March 2010 concluding that disparity in federal sentencing has increased in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in United States v. Booker (2005) and Gall v. United States (2007). In light of this USSC report, we provide an alternative set of analyses that we believe provides a more complete and informative picture of racial, ethnic, and gender disparity in federal sentencing outcomes post-Booker and Gall. We attempt first to replicate the USSC's models. Then, making different modeling assumptions, we present alternative models of sentencing outcomes across four time periods spanning fiscal years (FY) 2000 to 2009. We find that post-Booker/Gall: 1 Race/ethnic/gender disparity in sentence length decisions is generally comparable with pre-2003 levels; 2 African American males’ odds of imprisonment have increased significantly post-Gall; 3 Immigration cases account for a significant proportion of sentence length disparity affecting Black males; 4 “Government-sponsored” below Federal Sentencing Guidelines sentences are a greater source of racial disparities than judge-initiated deviations. Finally, because much of the debate surrounding the Booker decision involves questions of whether the guidelines must be mandatory to be effective, we also present analyses of federal sentencing disparities prior to the 1996 Koon v. United States decision, a period when the guidelines were arguably most constraining of judicial decision making. Comparing post-Booker and Gall to pre-Koon sentencing practices, we find: 5 With the exception of incarceration disparities for black males, all race/ethnic/gender groups are sentenced either the same or less harshly (compared to whites) under the new advisory system. Policy Implications One of the chief policy aims of the sentencing guidelines, and the sentencing reform movement more generally, is the reduction of racial, ethnic, and gender disparities in punishment. In the aftermath of the Booker and Gall decisions, which made the Federal Sentencing Guidelines effectively advisory, many commentators have feared that federal judges, as a result of their increased discretion, may use offender characteristics at sentencing, and thus disparities based on race, ethnicity, and gender would increase. A recent USSC report, which found that sentencing disparities have increased in the wake of Booker and Gall, suggests that such fears are warranted and has further strengthened calls for a policy fix to post-Booker sentencing. One such proposed policy solution was House bill H.R. 1528 which would have, among other things, transformed the Sentencing Guidelines into a complex system of mandatory minimums in order to curb judicial discretion. In response to the USSC report as well as policy solutions to introduce a more rigid sentencing system, we suggest that the federal sentencing data, as yet, provide insufficient evidence of increased post-Booker disparity to warrant renewed restrictions on judicial discretion. Our analysis, generally, shows that sentencing disparities post-Booker and Gall are comparable to those just prior to these decisions, and are actually considerably less than in earlier time periods when the guidelines were more rigid and constraining. This latter finding raises serious questions about whether the guidelines must be mandatory in order to limit racial/ethnic/gender disparities. However, we do find that disparity in the imprisonment decision for black males increased post-Gall, which is ground for concern. Yet our results do not lend support to policy solutions that would seek to simply “re-mandatorize” the guidelines. Because our analysis shows that the bulk of extralegal disparities are observed in the incarceration decision and not the sentence-length decision (a distinction that is not made in the USSC report), reintroducing a rigid sentencing scheme may actually exacerbate incarceration disparities while having limited impact on sentence length disparities. Overall, rather than “blanket” solutions such as broad reductions in judicial discretion, we think that any policy changes to the Sentencing Guidelines should be focused on areas that are shown to be associated with sentencing disparities. According to our results, such areas include incarceration decisions, immigration offenses, and government-sponsored downward departures. Ultimately, we think careful consideration of the most problematic areas of sentencing, including those decisions made by prosecutors as well as judges, will be most effective at curbing extralegal disparities and increasing fairness at sentencing, both of which were original goals of the sentencing reform movement.

Addressing Racial Disparities in Incarceration

This article reviews the current trends and impact of mass incarceration on communities of color, with a focus on criminal justice policy and practice contributors to racial disparity. The impact of these disproportionate incarceration rates on public safety, offenders, and communities are discussed. Recommendations for criminal justice and other policy reforms to reduce unwarranted racial disparities are offered.

The Race of a Criminal Record: How Incarceration Colors Racial Perceptions

In the United States, racial disparities in incarceration and their consequences are widely discussed and debated. Previous research suggests that perceptions of crime and the operations of the criminal justice system play an important role in shaping how Americans think about race. This study extends the conversation by exploring whether being incarcerated affects how individuals perceive their own race as well as how they are perceived by others, using unique longitudinal data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Results show that respondents who have been incarcerated are more likely to identify and be seen as black, and less likely to identify and be seen as white, regardless of how they were perceived or identifed previously. This suggests that race is not a fxed characteristic of individuals but is fexible and continually negotiated in everyday interactions.

The efficacy and effect of racial profiling: A mathematical simulation approach

AbstractRacial profiling—the use of race, ethnicity, or national origin by law enforcement officials to make judgments of criminal suspicion—is assessed in terms of its effect on targeted populations and on law enforcement efficiency. A mathematical simulation, comparing multiple profiling and non‐profiling scenarios, is employed. This analysis indicates that racial profiling exacerbates incarceration disparities between groups whether or not the groups differ in criminality rates, and that the long‐term effects of profiling in terms of criminal captures depend on the calibration of profiling rates to criminality rates. The highest long‐term criminal capture rates appear to occur when stop rate ratios match, or are slightly below, criminality rate ratios between groups. When the possibility of a deterrent effect is modeled, profiling appears to yield fewer criminal captures and have little or no crime reduction effect, and may even increase overall crime rates. © 2006 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management

ECONOMIC THREAT AND RACIAL DISPARITIES IN INCARCERATION: THE CASE OF POSTBELLUM GEORGIA

Economic threat figures prominently in recent explanations of lethal social control directed against blacks after the Civil War. As the position of whites and blacks became more similar, racial antagonisms intensified and found expression in efforts to suppress and intimidate blacks through lynchings and executions. This paper applies the economic threat hypothesis to the exercise of nonlethal social control in Georgia between 1874 and 1936. Time series analysis indicates that declines in racial inequality slightly increased racial disparities in incarceration. More noticeably, they decreased the black male incarceration rate and increased its white counterpart. The paper concludes with a discussion of the theoretical and empirical implications of the results.