Victim‐Based Effects on Racially Disparate Sentencing in Ohio

• Published date: 01 March 2011
• Date: 01 March 2011
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1740-1461.2010.01202.x

Victim-Based Effects on Racially Disparate

Sentencing in Ohiojels_120285..117

John Wooldredge, Timothy Griffin, Amy Thistlethwaite, and

Fritz Rauschenberg*

Scholars have argued that African-American men accused of violently victimizing whites

receive especially harsh treatment in court. This thesis was tested with samples of felony

defendants processed in Ohio courts before and after the implementation of sentencing

guidelines. During the preguideline period only, African-American men accused of victim-

izing whites were less likely than other defendants to plead guilty in exchange for reduced

charges and/or sentences, and African-American men incarcerated for violent crimes

against whites received longer sentences than other incarcerated offenders. During the

postguideline period only, by contrast, the odds of pleading guilty in exchange for reduced

charges were actually higher for African-American men accused of victimizing whites.

African-American male prison terms significantly declined relative to incarcerated whites

from the preguideline to the postguideline period. The interaction effect of defendant-

victim race was significant during the preguideline period, not significant in the postguide-

line period, and significantly changed over time.

I. Introduction

Critical criminologists argue that the components of the criminal justice system operate to

favor criminal suspects with higher social and economic status at the expense of lower-status

suspects, including racial minorities, who are often identified as “dangerous.”1In the

criminal courts, therefore, minority defendants may experience more punitive treatment

relative to white defendants because of their marginalized status.2Evidence of harsher case

*Address correspondence to John Wooldredge, Division of Criminal Justice, University of Cincinnati, PO Box 210389,

Cincinnati, OH 45221-0389; email: John.Wooldredge@UC.edu. Wooldredge is at University of Cincinnati; Griffin is

at University of Nevada–Reno; Thistlethwaite is at Northern Kentucky University; Rauschenberg is with Ohio Parole

Authority.

Supported under Award 98-CE-VX-0015 from the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S.

Department of Justice. Points of view in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the

official position of the U.S. Department of Justice. Thanks to Travis Pratt for his assistance on this project.

1Donald Black, The Behavior of Law (1976).

2Jeffrey Reiman, The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison (2001).

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies

Volume 8, Issue 1, 85–117, March 2011

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outcomes for minority defendants in general is sporadic,3but an emerging theme in extant

studies is that race effects on sentencing may depend on other characteristics of defendants

such as their sex,4employment status,5or pretrial release status,6and may also be condi-

tioned by court/jurisdiction characteristics such as political climate,7and racial composi-

tion of the population.8This relatively large body of research, however, offers limited

insight into possible conditioning effects of victim characteristics on racial disparities in case

outcomes.9For example, African-American defendants accused of violently victimizing

whites may face higher odds of imprisonment compared to other dyads defined by the

defendant’s and victim’s race.10

The study described here offers insight into victim-based effects on racially dispar-

ate treatment with analyses of imprisonment and sentence length for samples of felony

defendants processed in 24 Ohio jurisdictions. These analyses were conducted separately

for samples of defendants processed before versus after the implementation of presump-

tive guidelines in Ohio in order to examine whether these guidelines effectively reduced

extralegal disparities in sentencing. Interest in the pre- versus postguideline comparisons

stems from the argument that extralegal disparities in case outcomes can be lessened

with sentencing guidelines that reduce judicial discretion.11 Also presented are analyses of

racial disparities in dispositions at earlier stages of case processing (dropped charges vs.

plea bargains vs. guilty pleas to the original indictments or trial convictions), based on

the idea that discretion in decision making might be “displaced” from judges to pros-

ecutors under more structured sentencing.12 Aside from the focus on racial dyads (i.e.,

whether victim’s race conditions the effects of defendant’s race on the severity of case

3Jeffery Ulmer & Brian Johnson, Sentencing in Context: A Multi-Level Analysis, 42 Criminology 137 (2004).

4Darrell Steffensmeier et al., The Interaction of Race, Gender, and Age in Criminal Sentencing: The Punishment Cost

of Being Young, Black, and Male, 36 Criminology 763 (1998).

5Cassia Spohn & David Holleran, The Imprisonment Penalty Paid by Young, Unemployed Black and Hispanic Males,

38 Criminology 281 (2000).

6Celesta Albonetti, Race and the Probability of Pleading Guilty, 6 J. Quantitative Criminology 315 (1990).

7Jeffery Ulmer & John Kramer, Court Communities Under Sentencing Guidelines: Dilemmas of Formal Rationality

and Sentencing Disparity, 42 Criminology 383 (1996).

8Ulmer & Johnson, supra note 3.

9Cassia Spohn & Jeffrey Spears, The Effect of Victim and Offender Characteristics on Sexual Assault Case Processing

Decisions, 13 Just. Q. 649 (1996).

10Raymond Paternoster & Robert Brame, An Empirical Analysis of Maryland’s Death Sentencing System with Respect

to the Influence of Race and Legal Jurisdiction: Final Report (2003).

11Marvin Frankel, Criminal Sentences: Law Without Order (1972).

12Candace McCoy, Determinate Sentencing, Plea Bargaining Bans, and Hydraulic Discretion in California, 9 Just. Sys.

J. 256 (1984).

86 Wooldredge et al.

outcomes), the conditioning effects of victim’s sex and familiarity with the defendant

were also examined.

II. Race Group Differences in Court Dispositions and

the Limits of Sentencing Reform

A focus on general disparities in treatment between race groups might mask disadvantages

that accrue when minority status acts in combination with other factors to the detriment of

African-American defendants.13 From a symbolic interactionist perspective, the combina-

tion of minority status with other attributes that are also associated with criminal “threat”

might contribute to court actors’ perceptions of minority defendants with these attributes

as particularly menacing.14 Race-based disparities in case outcomes could result from these

more subliminal influences of minority status acting in conjunction with other factors.15 For

example, research has found that racial/ethnic minorities are at a disadvantage relative to

whites in final sentencing outcomes if they are young and male,16 poor,17 unemployed,18 or

are convicted of particularly serious offenses.19

A. Disparate Treatment Based on Perceptions of Criminal “Threat”

A number of theoretical perspectives have been advanced to account for why other extra-

legal attributes might interact with a defendant’s race or ethnicity to yield harsher sen-

tences. For example, scholars have drawn from theory on organizational decision making

to explain why young African-American males might be sent to prison more often and

might receive longer sentences relative to other defendant groups.20 Under pressure to

dispose of cases efficiently, and lacking perfect knowledge of offenders’ amenability to

rehabilitation or likelihood of recidivism, sentencing judges instinctively default to criminal

13Terance Miethe, Charging and Plea Bargaining Practices Under Determinate Sentencing: An Investigation of the

Hydraulic Displacement of Discretion, 78 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 155 (1987).

14Darnell Hawkins, Beyond Anomalies: Rethinking the Conflict Perspective on Race and Criminal Punishment, 65

Soc. Forces (1987).

15Steffensmeier et al., supra note 4.

16Spohn & Holleran, supra note 5.

17John Wooldredge, Analytical Rigor in Studies of Disparity in Case Processing, 14 J. Quantitative Criminology 155

(1998).

18Ted Chiricos & Williams Bales, Unemployment and Punishment: An Empirical Assessment, 29 Criminology 701

(1991).

19Charles Crawford et al., Race, Racial Threat, and Sentencing of Habitual Offenders, 36 Criminology 481 (1998).

20Steffensmeier et al., supra note 4.

Victim-Based Effects on Racially Disparate Sentencing 87