Sentencing and State‐Level Racial and Ethnic Contexts

• Date: 01 December 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lasr.12164
• Published date: 01 December 2015

Sentencing and State-Level Racial and Ethnic

Contexts

Xia Wang Daniel P. Mears

Sentencing studies have incorporated social context in studying sentencing

decisions, but to date the bulk of prior work has focused almost exclusively on

county context. An unresolved question is whether there also may be state-

level effects on sentencing. Drawing from the minority threat perspective, we

examine (1) whether state-level racial and ethnic contexts affect sentencing,

(2) whether this effect amplifies the effect of county-level racial and ethnic

contexts on sentencing, and (3) whether the interaction of county-level and

state-level contextual effects is greater for minorities than for whites. Analysis

of State Court Processing Statistics and other data indicates that state-level

racial and ethnic contexts are associated with sentencing outcomes and that

this effect may differ by outcome (e.g., incarceration versus sentence length)

and by type of context (e.g., racial or ethnic). The study’s findings and their

implications are discussed.

Sentencing disparity has constituted a central focus of crimino-

logical and legal studies scholarship. Recent research has high-

lighted the salience of social context on sentencing decisions,

including disparities in sentencing. This work has identified

many factors—such as racial and ethnic composition, unemploy-

ment rate, and political party representation (e.g., Britt 2000;

Fearn 2005; Feldmeyer et al. 2015; Ulmer and Johnson 2004)—

that may influence courtroom decision making. Although these

studies have significantly advanced scholarship, an unresolved

question is whether there also may be state-level effects on sen-

tencing. Specifically, it remains unknown whether state social con-

text affects sentencing decisions, whether this effect conditions

the effect of county-level social context, and whether interactive

effects of county context and state context are greater for some

groups (e.g., blacks and Hispanics) than for whites.

The authors thank the Editors and anonymous reviewers for their constructive feed-

back and insights. Please direct all correspondence to Xia Wang, Arizona State University,

School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, 411 N. Central Ave, Suite 600, Phoenix, AZ

85004; e-mail: xiawang@asu.edu

Law & Society Review, Volume 49, Number 4 (2015)

V

C2015 Law and Society Association. All rights reserved.

883

A focus on direct and interactive effects of state context on

sentencing is warranted for several reasons. First, sentencing laws

and other factors related to sanctioning, such as the organization

of correctional systems and parole boards, are organized at the

state level. Second, scholars have argued that state-level effects on

sentencing decisions may exist. Over 30 years ago, for example,

Eisenstein and Jacob (1977) suggested that state laws and context

influence case outcomes. Other work since has reinforced this

observation. For example, a study by Crutchfield, Bridges, and

Pitchford (1994) found “dramatic and substantively important dif-

ferences” among states in racial disparities in imprisonment (p.

174); the authors concluded that “differences in [state] context

contribute significantly to variation in the form and severity of

punishments and to variation in the types of persons and groups

punished for crimes” (p. 179) (see also Barker 2009). New lines

of research have begun to examine this possibility more closely

(see, e.g., Fearn 2005; Helms and Jacobs 2002; Wang et al.

2013). Third, substantive overlap exists in arguments presented

for county-level effects and state-level effects; indeed, a number

of studies suggest that minority threat effects operate at both

county and state levels. Notably, however, studies of county-level

effects have focused primarily on sentencing decisions while stud-

ies of state-level effects have focused primarily on variation in

incarceration rates. Underlying each of these bodies of work is an

emphasis on racial and ethnic threat as a factor that influences

sentencing decisions and incarceration rates. A logical extension

of such work is to combine them by examining how state-level

context may influence sentencing decisions, as well as how it may

modify county-level contextual effects.

Against this backdrop, the goal of this paper is to contribute

to sentencing research aimed at understanding how state-level

social context may influence sentencing decisions; in particular,

the article seeks to extend efforts to use the minority threat per-

spective to understand better the factors that influence sentencing

decisions. To this end, we develop a series of hypotheses aimed at

investigating whether state context influences sentencing deci-

sions, whether these effects amplify county-level effects on sen-

tencing, and, finally, whether county-level and state-level

contextual effects together produce more punitive outcomes for

some groups than for others. In so doing, this study responds to

calls for including state context in sentencing studies and it builds

on previous multilevel sentencing research by theorizing and

empirically examining interactions across three levels of analy-

sis—individual, county, and state. We argue that, when the three

levels of analysis are examined, the functional equivalent of a

“perfect storm” model emerges, one that highlights the ways in

884 State-Level Racial and Ethnic Contexts

which race and ethnicity at multiple levels of analysis can interact

to contribute to racial and ethnic disparities in sentencing.

Background

In recent decades, sentencing research has turned to a focus

on contextual factors and their influence on sentencing decisions

(Ulmer 2012). This new direction has its roots in the court com-

munity perspective. According to this perspective, courtroom

decision making varies across different contexts (Eisenstein et al.

1988; Eisenstein and Jacob 1977; Ulmer 1997). The challenge

has been in identifying specific contextual factors that affect

courtroom decision making. In general, extant studies have

focused primarily on county factors in examining sentencing

decisions. That is not surprising. According to the court commu-

nity perspective, for example, judges’ attitudes toward defend-

ants, crime, and criminal justice have at least some

correspondence with local political attitudes and culture, regard-

less of how judges are selected (Eisenstein and Jacob 1977: 45).

In addition, because counties are responsible for building and

maintaining court houses and other physical facilities for courts,

courtroom actors must work together to compete for scarce

resources and they must learn how to adapt to each other.

Judges, for example, may need to adapt to pressures from prose-

cutors and defense attorneys, prosecutors may need to adapt to

pressures from the police, and so on (Eisenstein and Jacob 1977).

These local court communities may in turn foster their own sub-

stantive rationalities that may shape sentencing outcomes and

processes (Savelsberg 1992; Ulmer and Kramer 1996).

In short, the court community perspective and a growing

body of research have highlighted the importance of identifying

contextual effects on a range of individual-level outcomes, includ-

ing sentencing (Britt 2000; Fearn 2005; Johnson 2005, 2006;

Sampson, Morenoff, and Gannon-Rowley 2002; Ulmer and John-

son 2004). Notably, however, little attention has been paid to

state-level contextual effects on sentencing. This research gap is

significant for several reasons.

First, criminal justice policies and laws are set predominately

at the state level. Departments of corrections, parole boards, and

sentencing commissions are state-level agencies, and sentencing

laws and reforms typically are set at the state level (Shane-

DuBow, Brown, and Olsen 1985). Also, states vary in their state

court organization. Typically, court organization is controlled and

regulated through statewide agencies, although states may have

different systems for selecting trial court judges (Rottman et al.

Wang & Mears 885