By Shamena Anwar, Patrick Bayer, Randi Hjalmarsson, Matthew L. Mizel

Virginia law states that any motorist pulled over for driving 20 miles per hour (mph) or more over the speed limit or driving in excess of 80 mph at any speed limit (or 85 mph as of July 2020) is eligible for a reckless driving citation, which is a Class 1 misdemeanor violation. However, both law enforcement officers and the courts can use discretion to reduce the misdemeanor charge to a simple traffic infraction. In this report, researchers use data on speeding violations in 18 Virginia counties over a nine-year period to examine whether there are racial disparities in who benefits from this discretion and why these racial disparities might exist.

Key Findings

Law enforcement and the courts are afforded significant discretion in misdemeanor cases

When Virginia officers pull over a motorist for speeding in the reckless range, they can either charge the motorist with a misdemeanor or downgrade the charge to an infraction. Officers in this sample downgraded the charge to an infraction 58 percent of the time.

At the court stage, the court can convict the motorist of the misdemeanor charge, amend the charge downward (typically to an infraction), or dismiss the charge entirely. In this sample, the courts amended or dismissed these misdemeanor speeding charges 42 percent of the time.

Penalties for a misdemeanor conviction are significantly higher than penalties for an infraction

A misdemeanor conviction results in a criminal record, higher fines and fees, and a worse driving record, all of which can have important impacts on an individual's life.

Black motorists were more likely to be convicted of a misdemeanor

Among motorists cited for speeding in a range that qualified for a misdemeanor, 36 percent of Black motorists were convicted of a misdemeanor, compared with 19 percent of White motorists.

Racial disparities were present at both the law enforcement and court stages of the process. Compared with White motorists, Black motorists both were more likely to be charged with a misdemeanor by law enforcement and, conditional on being charged, were more likely to be convicted by the courts.

The county in which a motorist was cited explained almost half of the racial disparity in whom law enforcement charged with a misdemeanor.

About four-fifths of the racial disparity in whom the court convicted of a misdemeanor could be explained by observable case characteristics, such as whether the motorist attended the court hearing and whether a defense attorney was present.

Recommendations

One potential way to remove the option for disparate treatment, and to ensure that motorists in different counties are policed in the same way, would be to move to a statewide system of automated speed enforcement, in which cameras are set up to identify and send citations to speeding vehicles. The misdemeanor speed threshold could be set so that the overall level of enforcement is similar to current levels (in which a majority of motorists' potential misdemeanor charges are discounted), but the criteria would apply to all motorists across the state in the same way regardless of race or location.

A large percentage of the racial disparities at the court stage occurred because of racial differences in who attended the court hearing. If this pattern is caused by racial differences in being aware that court attendance is required, the citation issued to motorists could be restructured to make the next steps in the process clearer, and text message reminders for upcoming court dates could be sent to motorists.

Many jurisdictions have started to develop online platforms so that court hearings for traffic violations can occur remotely. Such platforms might result in a more standardized process, which might lessen the importance of attorneys — another driver of the overall racial disparity observed at the court stage. Furthermore, these platforms could hide the race of the motorist from the judge, potentially reducing judges' ability to engage in disparate treatment.

Santa Monica, RAND, 2021. 73p.

BY THE PHILADELPHIA DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE

Key Takeaways Archival research conducted for this report demonstrated that racial disparities observed in Philadelphia’s criminal court system are rooted in severe historical injustices and wealth inequality. For over a century, Black Philadelphians have been overrepresented in arrests and criminal charges, relative to their representation in the City’s broader population. Disparities have not been resolved and in many cases have been worsened by federal, state, and local laws and policies. Combining publicly-available datasets reveals that markers of systemic disinvestment such as poverty, unemployment, litter, health problems, and eviction are concentrated in formerly red-lined neighborhoods where residents are predominantly Black and Latinx. From 2015 to 2022, Black defendants were charged at disproportionately higher rates relative to other groups in seven of the eight most common criminal charge categories. Even when accounting for prior criminal record and illegal firearm charges, Black and Latinx individuals who are convicted of aggravated assault or burglary are more likely to be sentenced to incarceration than white individuals convicted of the same crime. Latinx individuals convicted of possessing drugs with intent to distribute (PWID) are more likely to be sentenced to incarceration than Black or white defendants, even when they have no prior record or illegal firearm charges. While this administration’s policies have helped to reduce disparities in supervision and probationary sentences, large racial disproportionalities remain in Philadelphia’s court system. Justice agencies and social institutions must work together to fix the structural racism that creates disparities across systems 

Philadelphia: The District Attorney's Office, 2023. 68p.

By Andrew Jordan, Ezra Karger, and Derek Neal

We examine ten cohorts of male eighth graders in public schools in Chicago, IL: 1995-2004. We find large racial disparities in academic achievement, socioeconomic status (SES), and adult criminal justice involvement. Although our measures of SES and academic achievement are strong predictors of future felony arraignment and incarceration, even among students of the same race who attend the same school, these measures predict only small portions of the overall Black-Hispanic disparities in adult criminal justice involvement. These same measures predict between roughly half or more of Black-White criminal justice disparities and over eighty percent of Hispanic-white disparities. The relationships between various valueadded measures of eighth-grade school quality and future criminal justice outcomes vary by race. Schools that excel at promoting on-time matriculation from eighth grade to high school significantly reduce rates of criminal justice involvement among Black males.  

WORKING PAPER · NO. 2024-140  

Chicago: University of Chicago, The Becker Friedman Institute for Economics , 2024. 52p.

By Sruthi Naraharisetti

In the wake of several high-profile systemic failures of justice for Black people in the last decade, there have been widespread demands for change against pervasive racial inequities throughout the criminal legal system. These failures include the killings by law enforcement1 of Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor; the excessive use of confinement and untimely deaths of Sandra Bland and Kalief Browder; and the determination of the wrongful convictions of the Central Park 5. While much of the public discourse has focused on how law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, and correctional officers perpetuate racial biases, far less attention has been on how public defense attorneys do, as well. Recently, scholars have started examining how race affects legal representation in public defense. The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees the right to counsel in criminal cases and the Supreme Court has held that the government will provide a lawyer if a person cannot afford it. Each decision point of a public defense lawyer’s assistance is vulnerable to racial bias and the potential for long-lasting harm to clients. Despite calls from the American Bar Association's Standards for the Defense Function4 for defense counsel to be proactive in detecting, investigating, and eliminating improper biases, with particular attention towards historically persistent biases like race, achieving this standard has proven difficult. Often operating with limited time, resources, and information, public defense attorneys must make critical decisions relating to bail requests, case investigations, social service needs, plea negotiations, and trial strategies, among others. Recognizing the pivotal role that public defense attorneys play in addressing racial disparities that their clients face, our exploratory study seeks to create a basis of understanding for how attorneys consider race when working with clients, conceptualize their role in addressing racial inequity, and experience the impact of their own racial/ethnic identities in the workplace. By shedding light on these issues, we hope to encourage public defense attorneys to reflect on and discuss how racial bias within their field perpetuates systemic harm, ultimately paving the way for improvement in racial equity across the field. 

New York: Center for Court Innovation, 2024. 14p.

By Naomi Delap and Liz Hogarth,

Our justice system, designed for men, is not working for women. Our prisons are full of trauma: over 60 per cent of women in prison have experienced domestic violence and more than half have experienced abuse as a child. Our prisons are bad at rehabilitating and deterring women from further offending; instead, they actively harm them and their children. Racially minoritised women are further disadvantaged: overrepresented at every point in the system and more likely than white women to be remanded and receive a sentence in the Crown Court. The human and financial cost of the system’s failure is significant.

The Labour government has announced a bold approach to respond to these issues. The creation of a Women’s Justice Board and its new strategy will, it is stated, reduce the number of women in prison and tackle the root causes of women’s offending by driving early intervention, diversion and alternatives to custody. If these outcomes are achieved, there will be less crime and fewer victims; and women, their families and their communities will benefit.

This new direction is a cause for celebration. If the initiative is to work, however, it is imperative we learn from the lessons of the past in order to avoid making the same mistakes; and look to other models for solutions in order to deliver, finally, a justice system that works for women.

London; Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, 2025. 24p.

By Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, Maria Jung, Firdaous Sbaï, Andrew S. Wilton, and Fiona Kouyoumdjian

Racially disaggregated incarceration data are an important indicator of population health and well-being, but are lacking in the Canadian context. We aimed to describe incarceration rates and proportions of Black people who experienced incarceration in Ontario, Canada during 2010 using population-based data. We used correctional administrative data for all 45,956 men and 6,357 women released from provincial correctional facilities in Ontario in 2010, including self-reported race data. Using 2006 Ontario Census data on the population size for race and age categories, we calculated and compared incarceration rates and proportions of the population experiencing incarceration by age, sex, and race groups using chi-square tests. In this first Canadian study presenting detailed incarceration rates by race, we found substantial over-representation of Black men in provincial correctional facilities in Ontario. We also found that a large proportion of Black men experience incarceration. In addition to further research, evidence-based action is needed to prevent exposure to criminogenic factors for Black people and to address the inequitable treatment of Black people within the criminal justice system.

Race and JusticeVolume 13, Issue 4, October 2023, Pages 530-54

By Roland Neil, and Michael Zanger-Tishler

There is great concern about algorithmic racial bias in the risk assessment instruments (RAIs) used in the criminal legal system. When testing for algorithmic bias, most research effectively uses arrest data as an unbiased measure of criminal offending, which collides with longstanding concerns that arrest is a biased proxy of offending. Given the centrality of arrest data in RAIs, racial differences in how arrest proxies offending may be a key pathway through which RAIs become biased. In this review, we evaluate the extensive body of research on racial differences in arrest as a measure of crime. Furthermore, we detail several ways that racial bias in arrest records could create algorithmic bias, although little research has attempted to measure the degree of algorithmic bias generated by using racially biased arrest records. We provide a roadmap to assist future research in understanding the impact of biased arrest records on RAIs.

Annual Review of Criminology, Vol. 8:97-119 January 2025)

By Robin Joy

From 2015-2019 Black people in Vermont were more likely to experience violent crime than White people in Vermont. This paper explores the circumstances and the criminal justice system response to violent crime against Black individuals. To do so, we use two data sources: the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) and the Vermont Court Adjudication Database maintained by the Crime Research Group (CRG). This paper focuses on the experience of Black victims1 and mentions White victims only when there is a divergence in patterns or responses that highlight specific policy needs to reduce Black victimization. For example, efforts to reduce violence against women will have lesser impact on Black victimization. This is because Black men make up the majority of Black victims of violence. White women make up the majority of victims of White victims of violence. This will be discussed more fully below. It is mentioned here to frame the readers’ attention as to when White victimization is referenced and when focusing policy discussions on Black experiences will benefit all Vermonters.   

Montpelier: Crime Research Group, 2022/ 12p.

By Sarah Monaghan, Kellyann Bock, Michael Rempel, & Olive Lu

Spanning more than four decades, how has the footprint of New York’s criminal legal system changed? This comprehensive report explores the changing landscape of law enforcement in New York State from 1980 to 2023. It analyzes trends in arrests, prosecutorial declinations, criminal convictions, and sentencing practices, with a focus on regional and racial disparities.

Key Takeaways

● Statewide Arrest Trends

● After varying patterns by charge and region from 1980 to 2010, arrest rates declined significantly from 2010 to 2020, with a modest resurgence from 2020 to 2023.

● Misdemeanor arrests in NYC increased nearly fourfold from 1980 to 2010, dropped by 75% from 2010 to 2020 but rose by 40% from 2020 to 2023.

● Felony arrests decreased across all regions from 1980 to 2020, with a modest uptick in recent years.

● Charge-Specific Arrest Patterns

● Drug arrests in NYC peaked at over 128,000 in 2000, before falling to under 18,000 in 2023.

● Prostitution and fare evasion arrests in NYC saw drastic declines. Prostitution declined 99% from 1985 to 2023, and fare evasion declined 99% from 1994 to 2021, before a 2021-to-2023 uptick.

● DUI remained a leading charge outside NYC, comprising 18%-19% of suburban and upstate misdemeanors in 2023.

● Prosecutorial Declinations

● After changing only modestly until 2017, district attorneys’ offices in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Brooklyn declined to prosecute increasing numbers of low level misdemeanor arrests from 2017 to 2023.

● Select low level arrests for transit fare evasion, prostitution, trespass, and marijuana possession saw especially significant increases in declinations in the Bronx, Manhattan, and/or Brooklyn.

● Sentencing Trends: Jail and prison sentences for misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies peaked around 2000 before decreasing significantly by 2023. Violent felony convictions increasingly resulted in prison sentences across all regions.

● Racial and Ethnic Disparities: While shrinking in some areas since 1980 (e.g., felony arrest disparities narrowed), the study found that sizable Black-white and Hispanic-white disparities on most metrics examined.

New York: Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College, 2024. 45p.

MAY CONTAIN MARKUP

BY ARYE RATTNER AND GIDEON FISHMAN

"Justice for All? Jews and Arabs in the Israeli Criminal Justice System" provides a comprehensive examination of the complex dynamics that shape the experiences of Jews and Arabs within Israel's legal framework. Through meticulous research and insightful analysis, this book delves into the intricacies of how the Israeli criminal justice system navigates issues of identity, power, and discrimination in cases involving Jewish and Arab individuals.

By shedding light on the unique challenges and disparities faced by these two communities, "Justice for All?" prompts readers to critically reflect on the notions of equality and fairness within the legal landscape of Israel. With a nuanced approach, the authors navigate through a range of perspectives, offering a compelling exploration of the multifaceted interactions between ethnicity, religion, and the pursuit of justice.

This book is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the complexities of the Israeli criminal justice system and its implications for the diverse communities it serves. "Justice for All?" serves as a thought-provoking contribution to the ongoing dialogue surrounding issues of representation, equity, and human rights in the context of Israel's legal institutions.

Westport, Connecticut London. Praeger. 1998. 142p.

By Jennifer Skeem, Lina Montoya, Christopher Lowenkamp

IN THE U.S., many jurisdictions are trying to reduce incarceration by improving pretrial decision-making. The pretrial decision is either to release the defendant until the court date or keep the defendant in jail to prevent re-offending or absconding. Rates of pretrial detention can be remarkably high, particularly in the federal system. There, the majority of defendants are detained before trial, even though less than 10 percent are arrested for a new crime or fail to appear while on pretrial release (Cohen & Austin, 2018; see also Rowland, 2018). Pretrial detention has serious consequences, including an increased likelihood of conviction, a harsh sentence, future re-offending, and unemployment (Dobbie et al., 2018; Leslie & Pope, 2017; Lowenkamp, 2022; Oleson et al., 2017). These consequences, in turn, are disproportionately borne by Black defendants (Didwania, 2021; Dobbie et al., 2018; Kutateladze et al., 2014; Leslie & Pope, 2017). Based on a sample of over 337,000 defendants drawn from 80 federal districts, Didwania (2021) found that 68 percent of Black defendants were detained - - - - - pretrial, compared to 51 percent of White defendants. Increasingly, efforts to improve pretrial decision-making include the goal of reducing racial disparities. In pursuing this goal, stakeholders probably assume that personal bias is to blame—i.e., that racial disparities in pretrial detention reflect the influence of implicit racism on human decision-making, and therefore that (perhaps) diversity training for practitioners would prevent such discrimination (see Devine & Ash, 2022). The majority of Americans frame racism as an interpersonal rather than structural problem—meaning that they focus on “a few bad apples” who discriminate, rather than on laws, policies, and systems that have a disparate impact (Rucker & Richeson, 2021). But disparities can also reflect “upstream” structural forces like socioeconomic and geographic conditions that lead to racial differences in the likelihood of rearrest or failure to appear. Black defendants tend to have more serious criminal histories and other potential risk factors for poor pretrial outcomes than White defendants (Didwania, 2021; Grossman et al., 2022; Spohn, 2008). Because risk of rearrest or flight are legitimate considerations for pretrial release, disparities related to differences in risk are hard to address via pretrial reform. Efforts to address disparities that flow from these kinds of structural forces would better be directed toward approaches like well-timed and well-targeted early prevention programs. In short, understanding the extent to which structural factors play a role in racial disparities is a matter of primary concern for shaping effective solutions (see Beck & Blumstein, 2018). In this study, we use federal data to explore the association between place—in this case U.S. district and geographic region—and racial disparities in pretrial officers’ recommendations for detention. We focus on officers’ recommendations in the federal system for three reasons. First, pretrial officers play a central role in assisting federal judges with the pretrial release decision, and officers’ detention recommendations strongly predict detention itself (see below, Pretrial Recommendation Context). Second, we conducted this work with the Probation and Pretrial Services Office of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, as part of their effort to reduce disparities by specifying targets for change. Third, the vastness and diversity of the federal system provide a unique opportunity to characterize the districts and regions of the U.S. where racial disparities in pretrial detention are greatest, so that they can be prioritized in problem-solving efforts. The federal system encompasses 93 districts that differ geographically, socially, and culturally—but they are governed by a common set

Federal Probation, 2022.

By Jaeok Kim, Cherrell Green, Alex Boldin, Quinn Hood, and Shirin Purkayastha

In April 2019, New York passed historic bail reform that was intended to reduce the use of pretrial detention. The impact was quick and sizable: from April 2019 to March 2020, the number of people incarcerated in New York jails decreased by more than 30 percent. The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic further decreased the number of people in jail. In July 2020, a daily average of 11,000 people were incarcerated in local jails across New York, hitting a two-decade low.1 Two-thirds of these people were incarcerated in jails outside of New York City. This report provides an extensive look at how five counties—Albany, Broome, Erie, Tompkins, and Ulster—implemented key provisions of the bail reform law. The analysis incorporates multiple data sources, including arrest, jail, and pretrial supervision administrative data; court observations; and system actor interviews. The major findings are as follows: 1. Changes in pretrial admissions and likelihood of pretrial detention § Across the counties, pretrial populations decreased more than 35 percent after the implementation of bail reform. § The likelihood of pretrial detention after arrest decreased by more than 35 percent after the implementation of bail reform. 2. Putting policy into practice: Findings from 300 virtual court observations § Mandatory release effectively limited the use of money bail. § Prosecutors and judges relied on money bail where still allowed. Judges set bail in about a quarter of all arraignments and for almost 60 percent of cases with qualifying charges. § When setting bail, judges rarely considered ability to pay and often set bail above defense counsel requests. In more than 70 percent of cases for which judges set bail, discussion about the person’s ability to pay remained absent from their arraignment hearing. § Prosecutors and judges relied on criminal history and severity of charge when assessing bail in more than a quarter of cases in which bail was set. § Although it occurred rarely, the 2020 amendments to bail reform allowed judges to use ambiguity in the statutes to set bail on charges that otherwise required mandatory release. 3. Twenty-six system actors’ perceptions of bail reform § More than 90 percent of system actors interviewed supported the bail reforms. § Virtual arraignments, introduced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, hampered attorney–client communication. Defendants faced many barriers in returning to court, including substance use, mental health, and financial struggles. § Inconsistent practices in local and county courts created challenges to the successful implementation of the law. 4. Changes in the use of pretrial supervision after bail reform implementation § The number of people admitted to pretrial supervision in Albany, Broome, and Ulster Counties decreased by more than one-third immediately after bail reform went into effect. § COVID-19 resulted in short-term declines in pretrial supervision admissions in Albany, Broome, and Ulster Counties, and a more prolonged effect in Erie County. § The share of new supervision admissions for misdemeanor cases dropped more than 30 percent at the beginning of the pandemic, then returned to prepandemic levels. § Variations in the use of release conditions reveal different court practices across counties. § Less than 15 percent of new pretrial supervision cases ended in revocation within six months, mostly for felony rearrest or failure to appear.

New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2022. 47p.

By Akhi Johnson, et al.

In 2020, after a request for proposal process, Vera began partnerships with prosecutors’ offices in six jurisdictions: Boulder County, Colorado; Contra Costa County, California; DeKalb County, Georgia; Ingham County, Michigan; Ramsey County, Minnesota; and Suffolk County, Massachusetts. The partnerships were initially slated to run for 12–18 months, but the pandemic and the 2020 racial justice movement required adapting and lengthening those engagements to two years. Three goals guided the partnerships: reducing mass incarceration, addressing racial disparities, and increasing accountability to those most impacted by the criminal legal system. Prosecutors wield tremendous power, as their decisions reach nearly every aspect of the criminal legal system. They decide whom to charge—and with what offense; whether to ask for bail; when to provide evidence to the defense; what plea offer to make; what sentence to recommend; and, in some instances, whether someone should receive parole. However, prosecutors have the greatest influence at charging, when they decide whether someone enters the criminal legal system, and their charging discretion is virtually unchecked. Although Vera helped each office to examine its impact at every discretion point, the primary focus was on how to reduce harms at charging—through who was charged, what crime was charged, and who could be diverted away from traditional prosecution. Vera’s approach to addressing racial disparities focused on systemic issues rather than potential biases of individual actors. Rather than analyze whether similarly situated people received different treatment based on their race, Vera highlighted broader trends to illustrate which communities the criminal legal system impacts most and in what ways. For example, Vera’s analysis revealed that although Black people represent 55 percent of DeKalb County, Georgia’s population, they made up 81 percent of the adult caseload, 79 percent of juvenile cases, and 93 percent of children charged as adults.2 Rather than seeking to determine who was at fault, Vera’s analysis describes trends and starts conversations within communities about the historical and societal factors contributing to disparities and how stakeholders can respond. For each partnership, a key goal was to help prosecutors be more accountable to communities impacted by their decisions. In many areas around the country, people do not know who their elected prosecutors are, let alone how an office’s decisions affect safety in their communities. That gap represents a missed opportunity to learn from people uniquely positioned to inform policy discussions, and it leaves communities ill-equipped to gauge the performance of their elected officials. Vera worked in partnership with each office to facilitate the public sharing of data to inform communities and ground conversations on potential reform efforts. As one community group noted, Vera’s engagement “has made our prosecutor more aware of the need for a greater relationship with the community. . . . [W]e have a lot of systemic issues . . . [and] Vera’s presence has allowed us to continue to push the conversations forward.” Multiple factors impacted each office’s ability to implement reforms during the engagements, but the political climate was most significant. With increased scrutiny of reform prosecutors and false narratives that communities had to choose between safety and reform, some jurisdictions faced unique challenges in announcing changes. Vera worked with each jurisdiction to assess what was feasible in the current moment and adjusted accordingly. Despite the political climate, our partners made significant strides—including a groundbreaking policy in Ramsey County, Minnesota, inspired by Philando Castile’s death, to deter non– public safety (pretextual) traffic stops. However, even when an office did not announce a particular policy, Vera observed shifts in how prosecutors approached cases based on discussions prompted by the engagements. As partner offices noted, Vera’s work prompted new discussions about how to assess cases and revealed problem areas. One prosecutor reflected that the engagement “changed the way I think about my job and my role . . . being more mindful about the decision to charge somebody with a felony, and, you know, even if that case is later dismissed, the impact that can have on them.”

New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2023. 40p.

KAH Webb, SA Riley, MT Wells

Pretrial risk assessment tools are used in jurisdictions across the country to assess the likelihood of "pretrial failure," the event where defendants either fail to appear for court or reoffend. Judicial officers, in turn, use these assessments to determine whether to release or detain defendants during trial. While algorithmic risk assessment tools were designed to predict pretrial failure with greater accuracy relative to judges, there is still concern that both risk assessment recommendations and pretrial decisions are biased against minority groups. In this paper, we develop methods to investigate the association between risk factors and pretrial failure, while simultaneously estimating misclassification rates of pretrial risk assessments and of judicial decisions as a function of defendant race. This approach adds to a growing literature that makes use of outcome misclassification methods to answer questions about fairness in pretrial decision-making. We give a detailed simulation study for our proposed methodology and apply these methods to data from the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services. We estimate that the VPRAI algorithm has near-perfect specificity, but its sensitivity differs by defendant race. Judicial decisions also display evidence of bias; we estimate wrongful detention rates of 39.7% and 51.4% among white and Black defendants, respectively.

Cornell University Pre-publication paper: 2023. 33p,

By Chad M. Topaz, Shaoyang Ning, Maria-Veronica Ciocanel & Shawn Bushway

Race-based inequity in federal criminal sentencing is widely acknowledged, and yet our understanding of it is far from complete. Inequity may arise from several sources, including direct bias of courtroom actors and structural bias that produces racially disparate impacts. Irrespective of these sources, inequity may also originate from different loci within the federal system. We bring together the questions of the sources and loci of inequity. The purpose of our study is to quantify race-based disparate impact and differential treatment at the national level and at the level of individual federal judicial districts. We analyze over one-half million sentencing records publicly available from the United States Sentencing Commission database, spanning the years 2006 to 2020. At the system-wide level, Black and Hispanic defendants receive average sentences that are approximately 19 months longer and 5 months longer, respectively. Demographic factors and sentencing guideline elements account for nearly 17 of the 19 months for Black defendants and all five of the months for Hispanic defendants, demonstrating the disparate impact of the system at the national level. At the individual district level, even after controlling for each district’s unique demographics and implementation of sentencing factors, 14 districts show significant differences for minoritized defendants as compared to white ones. These unexplained differences are evidence of possible differential treatment by judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys.

Published in: Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Volume 10, Article Number 366 (2023). doi: 10.1057/s41599-023-018By Bugmy 9-5.

By The National Institute of Corrections, Justice-Involved Veterans Network.

This white paper is a collaboration between the National Institute of Corrections, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and the National Institute of Corrections-sponsored Justice-Involved Veterans Network. This effort reflects the original Sequential Intercept Model (SIM) that was developed in the early 2000s by Mark Munetz, MD, and Patricia A. Griffin, PhD, along with Henry J. Steadman, PhD, of Policy Research Associates, Inc. The original intent of the Sequential Intercept Model was to “envision a series of ‘points of interception’ or opportunities for an intervention to prevent individuals with mental illness from entering or penetrating deeper into the criminal justice system” (Munetz & Griffin, 2006). The current project builds on prior efforts to adapt (as V-SIM) the original SIM to the justice-involved veterans population challenged by various forms and degrees of mental illness, as well as by substance abuse, and by the trauma from physical injuries (with psychological trauma-overlapping Traumatic Brain Injury of particular note). Each decision point in the criminal justice system represents an opportunity to intercede at the lowest level possible and to minimize the collateral consequences of a veteran getting more deeply involved in the justice system.

Washington, DC: NIC, 2023. 120p.

By Steering Committee on Justice Efficiencies and Access to the Justice System

A sub-committee of the Steering Committee on Justice Efficiencies and Access to the Criminal Justice System was formed to examine therapeutic courts in Canada, ascertain how well they were functioning, and identify best practices. A plan was formed to conduct a jurisdictional scan focused on mental health and drug treatment courts. (Other therapeutic courts, such as domestic violence courts and “Gladue” courts for Indigenous offenders, were outside the scope of the scan due to the constraints of time and the need to focus the inquiries.) Group interviews were arranged with judges, lawyers, and treatment providers from across Canada who work in these courts. The general topics that were covered in the interviews were: 1) Barriers to access and success; 2) Best practices; and 3) Evaluation methods. The authors of this report hope that this report can, in some way, serve to support, enhance, and contribute to the extensive body of knowledge held by the dedicated professionals who serve in these courts and who are passionately committed to improving the well-being of their communities.

Vancouver, BC: ICCLR, 2021. 142p.

By Hayley Hahn

In recent decades, states and municipalities have increasingly relied on court fines and fees to overcome budget shortfalls. Existing literature underscores the varied and adverse impacts of court debt, as well as the disproportionate incidence of such debt on people of color and poor people of all races. Yet, few pieces of scholarship directly link increased imposition of court fines and fees to decreased dependence on traditional progressive taxes. This article aims to fill the gap. Using the Law and Political Economy (LPE) framework, I argue that increased imposition of court debt derives from heightened antitax sentiment and the erosion of the state and local tax bases. In the process, I contend, the tax and court debt systems reflect and exacerbate racial inequality. I conclude by proposing a conceptual framework to abate reliance on court debt, advancing the LPE mission.

Journal of Law and Political Economy, 2(1) 2021.

By John W. Wertheimer

This first title in the “Law, Literature & Culture” series uses six legal disputes from the South Carolina courts to illuminate the complex legal history of race in the U.S. South from slavery through Jim Crow. The first two cases—one criminal, one civil—both illuminate the extreme oppressiveness of slavery. The third explores labor relations between newly emancipated Black agricultural workers and white landowners during Reconstruction. The remaining cases investigate three prominent features of the Jim Crow system: segregated schools, racially biased juries, and lynching, respectively. Throughout the century under consideration, South Carolina’s legal system obsessively drew racial lines, always to the detriment of non-white people, but it occasionally provided a public forum within which racial oppression could be challenged. The book emphasizes how dramatically the degree of legal oppressiveness experienced by Black South Carolinians varied during the century under study, based largely on the degree of Black access to political and legal power.

Amherst College Press, 2023.

By Cody Tuttle

I test for racial disparities in the criminal justice system by analyzing abnormal bunching in the distribution of crack-cocaine amounts used in federal sentencing. I compare cases sentenced before and after the Fair Sentencing Act, a 2010 law that changed the 10-year mandatory minimum threshold for crack-cocaine from 50g to 280g. First, I find that after 2010, there is a sharp increase in the fraction of cases sentenced at 280g (the point that now triggers a 10-year mandatory minimum), and that this increase is disproportionately large for black and Hispanic offenders. I then explore several possible explanations for the observed racial disparities, including discrimination. I analyze data from multiple stages in the criminal justice system and find that the increased bunching for minority offenders is driven by prosecutorial discretion, specifically as used by about 20-30% of prosecutors. Moreover, the fraction of cases at 280g falls in 2013 when evidentiary standards become stricter. Finally, the racial disparity in the increase cannot be explained by differences in education, sex, age, criminal history, seized drug amount, or other elements of the crime, but it can be almost entirely explained by a measure of state-level racial animus. These results shed light on the role of prosecutorial discretion and potentially racial discrimination as causes of racial disparities in sentencing.

College Park, MD: University of Maryland, 2019. 121p.