Extra Legal Disparities

Introduction

As we enter the 21st century, one of the consuming questions that our nation faces is whether the criminal justice system and other societal institutions are fair, or whether they are biased along racial, gender, and/or class lines (Zatz, 2000, p. 505). The readings we were exposed to during this unit highlight this question. They also provide empirical data to help the reader better understand the questions that are being asked concerning the influence of extralegal factors on sentencing and the disparity that is being identified in the studies. This paper will identify empirical evidence that supports that extralegal disparity is a result of the discretionary decision making process of sentencing.

Summary of Readings

The readings for this unit provided a look at the extralegal disparities that were identified during several empirical research studies reviewing the sentencing results for blacks, whites, Hispanics, Native Americans and Asians. In "Polices, Processes, and Decisions of the Criminal Justice System", Marjorie Zatz said that sentencing is the result of a long series of decisions that impact on one another. She went on to say that these multiple decision points can affect sentencing in several ways (2000, p. 507). The general resulting pattern is that white and middle class defendants are more likely to be filtered out of the system at earlier decision points than are poor defendants and defendants of color (Donziger, 1996; Mann, 1993; Walker, Spohn and DeLone, 1996; Zatz, 1985b).

The next two readings Cassia Spohn and David Holleran along with Darrell Steffensmeier and Stephen Demuth conducted studies that looked at race and ethnicity and sentencing. Both studies used regression analyses in an attempt to identify how extralegal factors affect sentencing outcomes. Spohn and Holleran found that 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 (2000). Steffensmeier and Demuth found that defendants who are older, more educated- whether white, black, or Hispanic- tend to receive shorter sentences (2000, p. 720). They also concluded that the harsher treatment of black and especially Hispanic defendants is consistent with the focal concerns perspective on judicial decision-making (2000, p. 725).

Travis Franklin's research findings were also consistent with the focal concerns perspective and its reliance on perceptions of race-based threat, in that Native Americans are often sentenced more harshly than white, African-American, and Hispanic offenders (2011). Interestingly, as noted by Franklin, little research has included Native Americans because of the small samplings available. When they are included, race-gender-age comparisons reveal that young Native American males receive the most punitive sentences among the races/ethnicities studied.

In the final reading of this unit, Travis Franklin looked how the focal concerns perspective's use of race-based threat affected Asian offenders who are frequently viewed as the "model minority" (2010). Researchers examining the content of this stereotype have found traits such as "hard working, disciplined, mathematical, intelligent, ambitious and skillful associated with