Crime & Delinquency 59(1)

Crime & Delinquency, February 2013: Volume 59, Issue 1

The Dangerous Drug Offender in Federal Court: Intersections of Race, Ethnicity, and Culpability
Cassia Spohn and Lisa L. Sample

This study examines the complex relationships among stereotypes about crime, the offender’s race/ethnicity, and sentencing decisions. Using data on White, Black, and Hispanic male drug offenders sentenced in three U.S. district courts and a definition of the dangerous drug offender appropriate to the federal sentence system, the authors explore the degree to which stereotypes about dangerous drug offenders influence sentence length. The results reveal that fitting the stereotype of a dangerous federal drug offender (i.e., a male drug trafficker with a prior trafficking conviction who used a weapon to commit the current offense) affected the length of the prison sentence for Black offenders but not for White or Hispanic offenders. Further analysis revealed that this effect was confined to Black offenders convicted of drug offenses involving crack cocaine. The results provide further evidence that the focal concerns guiding judicial decision making may vary depending on the offender’s race or ethnicity.

The Institutionalization of Racial Profiling Policy: An Examination of Antiprofiling Policy Adoption Among Large Law Enforcement Agencies
Kirk Miller

The issue of racial profiling has come to represent one of the key contemporary challenges facing law enforcement agencies in the United States. One way that agencies have responded to this issue is to adopt anti-profiling policies to address concerns about racial disparities in traffic stops and their outcomes. Policy adoption is assumed to encourage more racially equitable policing as well as enhance community relations. While both of these outcomes appear beneficial to law enforcement agencies, there is also good reason to expect that agencies may differ in the extent to which they are likely to implement such policy. This study explores what factors explain the adoption of protocols addressing the racial profiling phenomenon. Using data on large law enforcement agencies from the 2003 LEMAS survey, the findings reveal that both agency organizational characteristics and environmental features of the jurisdiction are associated with the agency’s profiling policy regime.

An Examination of the Interactions of Race and Gender on Sentencing Decisions Using a Trichotomous Dependent Variable
Tina L. Freiburger and Carly M. Hilinski

This study examined how race, gender, and age interact to affect defendants’ sentences using a trichotomized dependent variable. The findings indicate that the racial and gender disparity found in sentencing decisions was largely due to Black men’s increased likelihood of receiving jail as opposed to probation. The results also show that being young resulted in increased odds of receiving probation over jail for White men and for women but resulted in decreased odds for Black men. Separate analysis of incarceration terms to jail and prison further reveal that legal factors had a greater impact on prison than on jail sentence length. Overall, the results strongly support the argument that sentencing research needs to consider sentences to jail and prison separately.

Assessing the Differential Effects of Race and Ethnicity on Sentence Outcomes Under Different Sentencing Systems
Xia Wang, Daniel P. Mears, Cassia Spohn, and Lisa Dario

Although many states have adopted sentencing guidelines, questions remain about whether guidelines achieve one of their primary goals—reducing disparities that arise from such extralegal factors as race and ethnicity. To date, research has not taken a cross-state approach to testing for racial or ethnic disparity in sentences imposed in guideline and nonguideline states or to examining whether less disparity exists in states with voluntary or presumptive guidelines. To address this research gap and inform sentencing scholarship, data from the State Court Processing Statistics program are used to determine whether offenders’ race or ethnicity affects incarceration and sentence length decisions in jurisdictions with different types of sentencing systems. Implications of the findings for theory, research, and policy are discussed.

Disproportionate Minority Confinement of Juveniles: A National Examination of Black–White Disparity in Placements, 1997-2006
Jaya Davis and Jon R. Sorensen

Beginning in fiscal year 1994, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention included, as a requirement for a state to receive Federal Formula Grants, the determination of whether disproportionate minority confinement existed in its juvenile justice system, the identification of its causes, and the development and implementation of corrective strategies. The current study examined the extent to which U.S. juvenile justice systems have been successful in reducing disproportionate minority confinement—specifically, disproportionate African American incarceration—since the implementation of the office’s initiative. The findings suggest that, on average, there has been a reduction of nearly one fifth in the disproportionate Black:White ratio of juvenile placements, controlling for the groups’ rate of arrests during the past decade

Neighborhood Disadvantage and Verbal Ability as Explanations of the Black–White Difference in Adolescent Violence: Toward an Integrated Model
Thomas L. McNulty, Paul E. Bellair, and Stephen J. Watts

This article develops a multilevel model that integrates individual difference and sociological explanations of the Black–White difference in adolescent violence. Our basic premise is that low verbal ability is a criminogenic risk factor that is in part an outcome of exposure to neighborhood and family disadvantages. Analysis of the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth reveals that verbal ability has direct and indirect effects (through school achievement) on violence, provides a partial explanation for the racial disparity, and mediates the effect of socioeconomic disadvantage at the neighborhood level. Results support the view that neighborhood and family disadvantages have repercussions for the acquisition of verbal ability, which, in turn, serves as a protective factor against violence. We conclude that explanation of the race difference is best conceived as originating from the segregation of Blacks in disadvantaged contexts.