Over the past century, significant efforts have been made to understand the effects of race on criminal justice processing and sentencing. As a result of this research, sentencing policies have undergone numerous periods of reform. Yet, racial disparities in sentencing outcomes and incarceration rates continue to give rise to serious questions about how and through what processes race continues to affect sentencing outcomes. In this essay, we will review the scholarly research on race and sentencing, and discuss a number of important sentencing reforms that have taken place in the U.S. over the past three decades in response to evidence of disparate racial treatment and to pressure from advocates for reform.
Following widespread sentencing reforms, such as the adoption of federal and state sentencing guidelines, researchers have …show more content…
Early research on the role of race and ethnicity in criminal sentencing was more descriptive than theoretical. The methodologies involved in early studies were weak, and when theoretical explanations were offered, they often entailed unsophisticated notions of individual prejudice and racial discrimination. For example, Thorsten Sellin (1935) conducted simple comparisons of the average length of sentences given to black, native-born and foreign-born white male prisoners within very broad offense categories. Sellin claimed that the data revealed "the marked influence of race and nationality prejudice in the administration of justice" (p. 212). He concluded that, in light of the prejudice against blacks and foreign born within the society at large, "it would be denying to the judge the ordinary attributes of human nature to assume that he could render justice free from all preconceptions"
Following widespread sentencing reforms, such as the adoption of federal and state sentencing guidelines, researchers have …show more content…
Early research on the role of race and ethnicity in criminal sentencing was more descriptive than theoretical. The methodologies involved in early studies were weak, and when theoretical explanations were offered, they often entailed unsophisticated notions of individual prejudice and racial discrimination. For example, Thorsten Sellin (1935) conducted simple comparisons of the average length of sentences given to black, native-born and foreign-born white male prisoners within very broad offense categories. Sellin claimed that the data revealed "the marked influence of race and nationality prejudice in the administration of justice" (p. 212). He concluded that, in light of the prejudice against blacks and foreign born within the society at large, "it would be denying to the judge the ordinary attributes of human nature to assume that he could render justice free from all preconceptions"