Skin Color and the Criminal Justice System: Beyond Black‐White Disparities in Sentencing

• Date: 01 September 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jels.12077
• Author: Traci Burch
• Published date: 01 September 2015

Skin Color and the Criminal Justice

System: Beyond Black-White Disparities

in Sentencing

Traci Burch*

This article analyzes sentencing outcomes for black and white men in Georgia. The

analysis uses sentencing data collected by the Georgia Department of Corrections

(GDC). Among first-time offenders, both the race-only models and race and skin color

models estimate that, on average, blacks receive sentences that are 4.25 percent higher

than those of whites even after controlling for legally-relevant factors such as the type

of crime. However, the skin color model also shows us that this figure hides important

intraracial differences in sentence length: while medium- and dark-skinned blacks

receive sentences that are about 4.8 percent higher than those of whites, lighter-

skinned blacks receive sentences that are not statistically significantly different from

those of whites. After controlling for socioeconomic status in the race-only and race

and skin color models the remaining difference between whites and dark- and medium-

skinned blacks increases slightly, to 5.5 percent. These findings are discussed

with respect to the implications for public policy and for racial hierarchy in the

United States.

He was wowed by Obama’s oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black pres-

idential candidate, especially one such as Obama—a “light-skinned” African American “with no Negro

dialect, unless he wanted to have one,” as he said privately.

—Senator Harry Reid, as quoted in Game Change

I. Introduction

Racial and ethnic inequalities persist in the United States and no disparity is more

obviousthanthatseenincriminaljusticeoutcomes.BlacksintheUnitedStatesmake

up more than 36 percent of the 1.5 million people in prison, even though they repre-

sent only 12 percent of the nation’s population (Carson & Golinelli 2013). In light of

the disparity in incarceration across racial groups, one might wonder whether such

*Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Northwestern University and Research Professor, The

American Bar Foundation. Mailing address: Department of Political Science, Northwestern University, Scott Hall,

Evanston, IL 60208; email: t-burch@northwestern.edu.

395

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies

Volume 12, Issue 3, 395–420, September 2015

disparities also exist within racial groups along the lines of skin color. A growing body

of research finds differences by skin color in many settings where race matters; the

darkness of a person’s skin has been shown to affect economic success, mental health,

physical health, and even promotes political success, as this quotation from Harry

Reid posits (Harburg et al. 1978; Keith & Herring 1991; Davis et al. 1998; Johnson

et al. 1998; Allen et al. 2000; Hill 2000; Klonoff & Landrine 2000; Goldsmith et al.

2007; Weaver 2012). If criminal justice reflects the same biases found in the rest of

society, skin color should also affect how a person fares at various stages of the justice

process.

This article examines the relationship between race, skin color, and imprison-

ment at the state level by analyzing sentencing outcomes for black and white men who

are first-time offenders in Georgia. The analysis makes use of sentencing data provided

by the Georgia Department of Corrections and is the first to examine the effects of

both race and skin color on sentencing for such a large sample of male offenders.

These data contain demographic, soci oeconomic, racial , and criminal back ground

information about the entire universe of offenders who were ever supervised in Geor-

gia state prisons for felony convictions. The data also contain a 13-category measure of

skin color for each in mate. Statistical an alyses reveal that i ncarceration sent encing out-

comes in Georgia vary by both race and skin color even when controlling for back-

ground factors suc h as offense severity a nd personal characte ristics. Among first -time

offenders, both the race-only models and race and skin color models estimate that, on

average, blacks receive sentences that are 4.25 percent higher than those of whites

even after contro lling for legally- relevant factors s uch as the type of crime . However,

the model that accounts for race and skin color also shows that this figure obfuscates

important intraracial differences in sentence length: within this framework, while

medium- and dark-skinned blacks receive sentences that are about 4.8 percent higher

than those of whites, lighter-skinned blacks receive sentences that are statistically indis-

tinguishable from those of whites. When controls for socioec onomic status and mar ital

status are added, dark- and medium-skinned blacks receive sentences that are 5.4 per-

cent and 5.6 percent longer than those given to whites, respectively, while those of

light-skinned blacks remain statistically indistinguishable from those of whites. These

percentages translate into sentence disparities of months or even years depending on

the severity of the crime.

This study makes important contributions to the study of race and sentencing.

The high rates of incarceration of black men and women have had devastating conse-

quences for African-American families and communities as a whole (Fossett & Kiecolt

1993; Cole 1999; Western & Wildeman 2009; Alexander 2010). Ignoring the possibility

that, for blacks, sk in color also influence s these outcomes may obf uscate the fact that

the situation may be even more dire than previously thought for darker-skinned

blacks. Opening up this question to scholarly research may have important consequen-

ces for how scholars th ink about criminal ju stice disparitie s and for beliefs about

whether our society has adequately remedied racial discrimination in criminal

sentencing.

396 Burch