Institutional racism in sentencing disparities

Pre-Trial Analysis
The standard sort of research that is cited in this area consists of studies which compare legal outcomes for criminals after controlling for observable differences between them such as the type of crime they committed and their criminal history. These studies can be divided into those that examine pre-trial and post-trial outcomes.

With respect to pre-trial outcomes, Wu (2016) meta-analyzed 36 studies on the effect that race has on the probability that a defendant would be fully charged. Wu argues that these pre-trial decisions are very importance since 80% of state cases and 90% of federal cases never actually go to trial. Wu finds that black defendants are 9% more likely than white defendants to be charged.

Wu 2016
Wu 2016 is a meta-analysis that assesses "empirical findings from a body of scholarship that examined the relationship between race/ethnicity and prosecutorial outcomes." Wu 2016 states that the "result suggests that minority offenders face greater odds of being charged or fully prosecuted than White offenders. Moreover, several moderators, primarily methodologically relevant, account for variability across effect sizes."

Results

All odds ratios for effect sizes were coded on the basis of how minority offenders were treated as compared with White offenders during prosecution. Regardless of statistical significance, odds ratios greater than 1.00 would suggest the minority disadvantage, whereas odds ratios smaller than 1.00 would indicate the minority advantage. The stem-and-leaf plot in Figure 1 shows the relatively even distribution between the minority disadvantage and advantage. Quantitatively, approximately 56% of odds ratios fell within the range of the minority disadvantage. The distribution of effect sizes for the minority disadvantage was more dispersed than that for the minority advantage, however.

Seven odds ratios representing the minority disadvantage were greater than 1.40, compared with only four odds ratios representing the minority advantage that fell below the corresponding size of 0.71 (1/1.40 = 0.71). In addition, the greatest effect size for the minority advantage was 0.30, which corresponded with the odds ratio of 3.33 for the minority disadvantage. This size was much smaller than 4.17, as demonstrated by the greatest effect size for the minority disadvantage.

Table 2 shows a simple vote-counting strategy to further explore the significance of effect sizes in their original studies. Each effect size represents one of four groups:


 * significant minority disadvantage
 * insignificant minority disadvantage
 * significant minority advantage, and
 * insignificant minority advantage.

Only six of effect sizes (17%) displayed the significant minority disadvantage, and two of effect sizes (6%) displayed the significant minority advantage. The majority of effect sizes had no race/ethnicity effect. All of the above results depicted only a partial picture of the relationship between race/ethnicity and prosecution. An advanced statistical technique, such as a meta-analysis, was employed below to understand the complex dynamics of the relationship



In the moderator analysis, Wu produces several interesting findings. First, this effect is only found in the South. This finding is consistent with out intuitions about how racism is distributed across America. However, several other findings from the moderator analysis cast doubt on the idea that this meta-analysis is detecting real bias.


 * The strength of this effect has not changed with time contrary to what we might expect if racial animus was its cause.
 * It was found that controlling for crime type and criminal history actually increased the size of this effect, a finding that is hard to make any sense of.
 * Most importantly, no bias was found in studies that reported their standard error. The standard error is a statistic needed to put an result into this meta-analysis. Some studies reported them and others did not. When the standard error was not reported, Wu estimated what the standard error probably was. As Wu writes “Estimated standard errors likely overestimated or underestimated the effect of race and ethnicity on prosecutorial outcomes.”



The results of this meta-analysis suggest that Wu’s estimation process inflated the racial bias effect. The bias reported in the meta-analysis is driven by the 11 studies that failed to report their standard error. The best explanation for the fact that no bias was found in that 25 studies that reported their standard error is that the finding of bias when all the studies are combined is a statistical error. Thus, I don’t think research on pre-trial outcomes is good evidence for the existence of racial bias.

Mitchell and MacKenzie 2004
Mitchell and MacKenzie 2004 is a meta-analysis from the NCJRS shows a small statistically significant anti-black bias.


 * Limitations of this study include the following
 * "it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine statistically whether the observed differences between minorities and whites ethnicities in sentencing outcomes are due to discrimination or reflects statistical misspecification."
 * The present research also found that the magnitude of the unwarranted sentencing disparity disadvantaging African-Americans varied by several other factors.
 * First,estimates of unwarranted racial disparity varied by type of sentencing outcome. Unwarranted sentencing disparity disadvantaging African-Americans was largest when imprisonment and discretionary sentencing decisions were scrutinized and smaller when decisions pertaining to length of incarcerative sentence were assessed.
 * A second important source of systemic variation was type of offense. Specifically, sentencing disparity was largest in cases that examined sentences for drug offenses and smallest in cases involving property crimes.
 * Third, several methodological features were important moderators of effect size. Those studies that utilized only a single dichotomous measure of criminal history generated considerably larger estimates of unwarranted disparity than analyses using more precise measures of this important variable. Likewise, analyses using imprecise measures of offense severity also produced larger estimates of unwarranted racial disparity. Smaller estimates of unwarranted racial disparity in sentencing were also found in analyses employing more control variables for factors known to be related to both severity of sentence and race, especially SES of defendant.

Libgober 2019
This analysis shows that callback disparities by race were found by both black and white lawyers

Steffenmeier et al 2001
This study analyzed data on 40,000 sentences that were given in Pennsylvania between the years of 1991 and 1994. The impact that being black had on a person’s sentence was found to not significantly differ between black and white judges.

==== Uhlman 1978 ==== This study analyzed data from 35,000 trails which took place between 1968 and 1974. It was found that black and white judges exhibited equal degrees of racial bias. This was true both with respect to whether a defendant was found guilty and with respect to their sentence length.

Klein 1991
This report by RAND examines conviction rates, case disposition times, and other adjudication outcomes of defendants with certain types of felony burglaries and robberies. The multivariate analyses found that "a defendant's racial or ethnic group bore little or no relation to conviction rates, disposition times, or other key outcome measures (that is to say, the coefficients for these variables were not significantly different from zero or large enough to have a practical effect on forecasting accuracy)."

I cannot find the source for this but MacDonald 2015 says a "1994 Justice Department survey of felony cases from the country’s 75 largest urban areas found that blacks actually had a lower chance of prosecution following a felony than whites."


 * Analyzed data on 42,500 defendants in the nation’s 75 largest counties and found “no evidence that, in the places where blacks in the United States have most of their contacts with the justice system, that system treats them more harshly than whites.” (Federal government statistician Patrick A. Langan, 1995)
 * Blacks have a lower chance of prosecution after a felony than do whites -- and Blacks are additionally less likely to be found guilty (1994 Justice Department Survey)

Read Later:
https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=174599 https://books.google.com/books?id=SVeMAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA77&lpg=PA77&dq=%E2%80%9Cno+evidence+that,+in+the+places+where+blacks+in+the+United+States+have+most+of+their+contacts+with+the+justice+system,+that+system+treats+them+more+harshly+than+whites.%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=SCCLyWUA7i&sig=ACfU3U047O1ZZN-cUfmB3USxlwE5R8FTOg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiY56nLp4vrAhUQbs0KHZNMBK0Q6AEwA3oECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9Cno%20evidence%20that%2C%20in%20the%20places%20where%20blacks%20in%20the%20United%20States%20have%20most%20of%20their%20contacts%20with%20the%20justice%20system%2C%20that%20system%20treats%20them%20more%20harshly%20than%20whites.%E2%80%9D&f=false