Nov 14 (Reuters) – Black and Hispanic defendants in federal court are less likely than white ones to be sentenced to probation rather than prison, a difference that largely accounts for the racial disparities in the punishments judges impose, according to a new study.
The U.S. Sentencing Commission in a report released on Tuesday said demographic differences in sentencing can largely be attributed to the initial decision of whether a judge imposes a prison sentence at all, rather than the length of a prison term.
The bipartisan commission, which is tasked with revising the advisory sentencing guidelines that federal judges use to craft sentences, analyzed the sentences for more than 300,000 people convicted from 2017 to 2021 of a felony or Class A misdemeanor and focused on the 229,444 eligible for probation.
The study found that Black males were 23.4% less likely that their white counterparts to be sentenced to probation. Hispanic males were 26.6% less likely to receive probation than white males.
Black and Hispanic women were 11.2% and 29.7% less likely to receive probation than white females, respectively, the commission reported.
The panel in a 48-page report contrasted those large racial disparities with less-stark differences in the length of prison sentences imposed on defendants who were placed into federal custody following a conviction.
For example, Black and Hispanic men received sentences that were respectively 4.7% and 1.9% longer than white men who were sentenced to prison, the report said.
Yet when defendants sentenced to probation are included in the analysis, the study found that Black and Hispanic males respectively received 13.4% and 11.2% longer sentences on average than white men.
Women of all races received 29.2% shorter sentences on average than men and were 39.6% more likely to receive probation, the study found.
The report did not identify a cause for the disparities and what role prosecutors’ charging decisions and plea-bargaining had on what sentence a defendant ultimately received.
But U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves, who last year became the first Black person to chair the commission, in a statement said study’s “findings offer important information for practitioners, researchers, and others looking to make sentencing more just.”
“Affirming our testimony at our Senate confirmation hearing, we all have a duty to eradicate racial and other unwarranted disparities from every part of our criminal justice system,” Reeves said.
Reforms adopted by the panel under Reeves have expanded federal inmates’ ability to qualify for compassionate release from prison and retroactively applied certain changes to sentencing guidelines to allow thousands of first-time offenders to seek sentence reductions.
Read more:
U.S. panel votes to expand compassionate release for prisoners
U.S. panel proposes limiting sentencing of defendants for acquitted conduct
Newly-reconstituted U.S. sentencing panel finalizes reform priorities
Biden’s sentencing panel noms vow to implement criminal justice reform law
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Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston
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