Summary

A SYSTEMIC ISSUE: Decades of research have demonstrated a systemic and nation-wide presence of racial and ethnic disparities in the United States’ criminal justice system.

  • The sources of these disparities have commonly been attributed to (1) differences in the type and rate of criminal behaviors (2) unequal treatment across groups and (3) a combination of the two. Furthermore, differential treatment by systems and structural built-in criminal justice inputs and algorithms can unintentionally result in disparities to occur across different racial and ethnic groups.

Research Question: While controlling for relevant factors, is there a difference in the likelihood of recieving a prison recommendation at the Pre-sentence investigation (PSI) level by race-ethnicity?

General Sentencing Matrix (Form 1)

General Sentencing Matrix (Form 1)

The Sentencing Matrix:
A recommendation of either probation, jail, or prison is based on an individual’s criminal history score, and the severity and type of their most recent offense. Additionally, the individual’s mitigating/aggravating factors are taken into consideration.

Data & Summary Statistics: Overall, 19 percent of the PSI reports involved a prison recommendation, which differed by group (Hispanic: 27%, “Other”: 22%, White: 18%, and “Unknown”: 6%).

Variable Mean
prison rec 0.19
age 35.36
male 0.76
white 0.68
hispanic 0.13
other 0.11
unknown 0.08
severity 1.20
criminal_history 2.37
alc_drug 0.17
driving 0.11
drug_poss 0.12
property 0.37
person 0.15
murder 0.01
other_crimes 0.07

*Other includes: Black (4.8%), Native American (2.8%), Pacific Islander (1.7%), and Asian (1.1%)

Why Statistical Modeling?: Statistical models can help us understand whether group differences are present after we control for factors believed to affect our outcome of interest.

Link to Full Study (.pdf)

Criminal History: For criminal history category III, 26 percent of PSI’s involving a Hispanic individual can be expected to include a prison recommendation. This is reduced to 18 percent for Whites.

Moving Forward: Analyzing the role that mitigating and aggravating factors may play in explaining these differences in outcomes is an important first step in better understanding these disparities.

Further Examine:

  • Aggravating and Mitigating factors
    -To what extent do these factors influence differences in outcomes across racial-ethnic groups?
    -An individual’s socio-economic status is tied to some of these factors which is further linked to racial-ethnic groups

  • The Criminal History scoring algorithm
    -Examine its inputs

Data


About the Data: