Offender Ethnicity and Presentence Decision-Making

• Author: N.S. Johnson,Terrill R. Holland
• Date: 01 September 1979
• Published date: 01 September 1979
• DOI: 10.1177/009385487900600302
• Subject Matter: Articles

227

OFFENDER

ETHNICITY

AND

PRESENTENCE

DECISION-MAKING

A

Multivariate

Analysis

TERRILL

R.

HOLLAND

California

Department

of

Corrections,

Chino

N. S. JOHNSON

California

State

College,

San

Bernardino

Authors’

Note:

The

authors

are

grateful

to

Hung

Tran

for

data

pro-

cessing

assistance,

Kathleen

McKayfor

clerical

support,

and

Richard

B.

Heim

and

Norman

Holt

for

their

critical

review

of

the

manuscript.

Although

conducted

under

the

auspices

of

the

California

Department

of

Corrections,

the

opinions

expressed

are

those

of

the

authors

and

do

not

necessarily

reflect

the

official

position

of

the

Department

of

Corrections

or

the

Health

and

Welfare

Agency.

Requests

for

reprints

should

be

sent

to

Terrill

R.

Holland,

California

Institution

for

Men,

Box

128,

Chino,

California

91710.

Multiple

discriminant

analyses

were

performed

to

examine

the

sentencing

recommen-

dations

of

clinicians

versus

caseworkers

for

white,

Mexican-American,

and

black

male

offenders,

both

before

and

after

controlling

for

selected

criminological

characteristics

of

these

ethnic

groups.

Though

generally

of

small

magnitude,

discrimination

effects

favoring

whites

for

relatively

lenient

case

dispositions

were

larger

for

caseworkers

than

for

clinicians

and

remained

statistically

significant

only

for

caseworkers

after

holding

constant

criminological

variables.

The

results

are

discussed

in

terms

of

the

need

for

decreasing

the

discretion

of

decision

makers

through

the

use

of

guidelines

that

contain

expected

decision

outcomes.

hue

possibility

of

discrimination

against

ethnic

minority

group

members

in

criminal

justice

decisions

has

been

the

subject

of

considerable

recent

concern.

Much

of

this

concern