NCJ Number
185745
Journal
Justice Quarterly Volume: 17 Issue: 4 Dated: December 2000 Pages: 707-732
Editor(s)
Finn-Aage Esbensen
Date Published
December 2000
Length
26 pages
Annotation
Although the social context of a court is often claimed to be important in understanding the effect of offender race on punishment decisions but links between context and racial disparities are not well understood, the author tested four hypotheses involving elements that may link social context to racial disparities in punishment decisions--urbanization, racial threat, economic threat, and crime control.
Abstract
The four hypotheses were tested using sentencing data from the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing for the 1991-1994 period. The analysis included 128,916 incarceration decisions and 76,120 sentence length decisions for all 67 Pennsylvania counties. Variations in sentencing patterns by county were analyzed using two multi-level models that differed on the basis of the dependent variable, the decision to incarcerate or the length of sentence decision. Findings showed punishment severity varied by court jurisdiction, even after controlling for offender and case characteristics. Racial disparities varied by court jurisdiction, with controls for other offender and case characteristics. Measures of social context explained little of the contextual variations in punishment decisions for all offenders, and measures of social context did not explain racial disparities in punishment decisions. Although the author found convincing evidence of contextual variations in punishment decisions, he determined typical indicators of social context did not explain these variations. 57 references and 8 tables