| This paper examines the disposition of felony cases in California according to the race and ethnicity of the defendant. The data used for this study was obtained from the Criminal Justice Statistics Center of the California Department of Justice. The analysis is based on two types of sentencing information: a broad sentence classification (e.g., prison, jail, probation) and the type of sentence (e.g., felony sentence, misdemeanor sentence) handed down for each conviction. Available sentencing information was ranked in order of severity. Chi-squared analyses of this categorical data revealed that Caucasians were more likely than Blacks or Hispanics to receive sentences of lesser severity, and less likely than Blacks or Hispanics to receive the most severe type of outcome. However, many of the differences in sentencing observed among these racial/ethnic groups disappear when the defendant had some kind of prior record, especially a serious one. Still, Caucasians were significantly more likely than Blacks or Hispanics to have their cases dismissed or be acquitted when they had no prior record. An alternative model for this study is proposed that utilizes a new methodology for classifying and analyzing sentencing data. |
Updated 05/20/2006