Racially Determined Case Characteristics: Exploring Disparities in the Use of Sentencing Factors in England and Wales

Eoin Guilfoyle and Jose Pina-Sánchez

The British Journal of Criminology, 2025, vol. 65, issue 2, 241-260

Abstract: There is little understanding of how documented ethnic disparities in sentencing outcomes in England and Wales come to be and, consequently, how to address them. We argue that disparities in sentence outcomes could stem from how cases are constructed. We hypothesize that case characteristics determined through a high degree of judicial discretion and an assessment of the offender have a high risk of being racially determined, and therefore, operate as precursors of ethnic disparities in sentencing. We test this using Crown Court Sentencing Survey and Court Proceedings data. We identify three sentencing factors (remorse, good character and ability to rehabilitate) clearly favouring White offenders. We contextualize their operation and argue that all three should be classified as racially determined and sources of ethnic disparity. We conclude by setting out targeted policy solutions.

Keywords: sentencing; guidelines; disparities; ethnicity; Crown Court (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/bjc/azae039 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:crimin:v:65:y:2025:i:2:p:241-260.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

The British Journal of Criminology is currently edited by Eamonn Carrabine

More articles in The British Journal of Criminology from Centre for Crime and Justice Studies Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().