Racial Disparities in Criminal Sentencing Vary Considerably across Federal Judges

Nicholas Goldrosen, Christian Michael Smith, Maria-Veronica Ciocanel, Rebecca Santorella, Shilad Sen, Shawn Bushway and Chad M. Topaz

Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), 2023, vol. 179, issue 1, 92-113

Abstract: Substantial race-based disparities exist in federal criminal sentencing. We analyze 380,000 recent (2006-2019) sentences in the JUSTFAIR database and show that these disparities are large and vary considerably across judges. Judges assign White defendants sentences 13% shorter than Black defendants' and 19% shorter than Hispanic defendants' sentences, on average, conditional on case characteristics and district. Judges one standard deviation above average in their estimated Black-White disparity give Black defendants sentences 39%conditionally longer than White defendants' sentences, vis-à-vis average disparity of 13%. Judges one standard deviation above average in their estimated Hispanic-White disparity give Hispanic defendants sentences 49% conditionally longer than White defendants' sentences, compared to the average disparity of 19%.

Keywords: sentencing; sentencingguidelines; racialdisparities; judicialdiscretion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J15 K14 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1628/jite-2023-0005

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