The effect of offender race/ethnicity on public opinion of appropriate criminal sentences

Purpose

There has been a long history of sentencing disparities in the United States criminal justice system, in particular amongst defendants of different races or ethnicities. The most commonly noted disparity is that Black defendants are typically sentenced more harshly than White defendants. This study analysed the relationship between an offender's racial/ethnic status and the layperson's opinion of an appropriate sentence by investigating an array of racial/ethnic categories amongst a variety of crimes.

Method

Undergraduate students (Experiment 1, N = 594; Experiment 3, N = 263) recruited from introductory psychology courses and a community sample (Experiment 2, N = 124) recruited via Amazon MTurk were presented with crime vignettes and photos of offenders and asked to assign a punishment that they deem appropriate (operationalized as number of months of imprisonment). Participants were also randomly assigned to either receive the 2018 Federal Guidelines’ recommended sentence for each crime or not.

Results

Two findings were the most striking: 1) White offenders were sentenced significantly more harshly than any other race/ethnicity for assault crimes and 2) significant differences in sentencing due to offender race/ethnicity were only apparent when participants were exposed to all five race/ethnicity categories (Experiments 1 and 2) rather than just one race/ethnicity (Experiment 3).

Conclusions

The results of the present study may be time-sensitive and reflective of the current sociopolitical climate following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. Future research may benefit from replicating this study longitudinally to assess the longevity of these results.