Sentence disparity in criminal justice systems

Sentencing Disparity

Preventing Sentence Disparity

Ultimately, sentencing disparity is rooted in a combination of how laws are authored and how they are enforced. Such is to say that the approach to sentencing in the United States is not itself racially biased. However, when contextualized by a legal system that is decidedly tilted to the disadvantage of African-Americans, Hispanics and other ethnic minorities, sentencing does take on unequal proportions.

The text by Worrall (2008) points out that the way certain laws are designed seems to suggest that the system is inherently and purposefully designed to produce longer incarcerations for racial minorities. According to Worrall, mandatory minimums are an area in which the strategy of sentencing is especially troubling. Here, the emphasis on using drug sentences in order to produce incarcerations is magnified by the three-strikes format. Here, a third offense, regardless of severity, will result in life imprisonment. This combines with sentencing terms that appear to be a great deal more severe for offenses that more commonly involve minority demographics than those typically committed by white perpetrators.

Worrall reports that "the discrepancy deliberately or accidentally targets the population of young black men. This concern has been highlighted eloquently by one pair of researchers: 'By providing harsher penalties for criminal behavior in which blacks are primarily involved -- such as crack offenses -- compared to those in which whites are primarily involved -- such as powder cocaine offenses -- come have argued that the guidelines actually produce racially disparate sentencing outcomes."

This denotes that at their core, American sentencing laws are designed to target minorities. The only true way of resolving this inequity is to examine the way our laws are designed, especially in contexts where African-American and Hispanic populations are predominant. Here, there would seem to be a connection between the nature of crimes committed in urban contexts and the perception of severity. Legislative reform is the only way to reduce the impact of these laws. Greater objectivity should be used in determining the appropriate sentence for non-violent offenses.

Achieving this objectivity requires, more than any other legal step, the elimination of mandatory minimums. These remove the flexibility and pragmatism from sentencing, allowing the systems own internal biases to emerge in the process. The result is that mandatory minimums inevitably impact those populations most vulnerable to arrest and incarceration. African-American and Hispanic populations are especially susceptible to these patterns.