from the US Federal Courts"
BY: DAVID B. MUSTARD
University of Georgia
Terry College of Business
Document: Available from the SSRN Electronic Paper Collection:
http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=253712
Date: Undated
Contact: DAVID B. MUSTARD
Email: Mailto:mustard at terry.uga.edu
Postal: University of Georgia
Terry College of Business
Dept. of Economics
528 Brooks Hall
Athens, GA 30602-6255 USA
Phone: 706-542-3624
Fax: 706-542-3376
ABSTRACT:
This paper examines 77,236 federal offenders sentenced under the
Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 and concludes the following.
First, after controlling for extensive criminological,
demographic and socioeconomic variables, I found that blacks,
males and offenders with low education and low income receive
substantially longer sentences. Second, disparities are
primarily generated by departures from the guidelines, rather
than differential sentencing within the guidelines. Departures
produce about 55% of the black-white difference and 70% of the
male-female difference. Third, although black-white disparities
occur across offenses, the largest differences are for drug
trafficking. The Hispanic-white disparity is generated primarily
by those convicted of drug trafficking and firearm
possession/trafficking. Last, blacks and males are also less
likely to get no prison term when that option is available, less
likely to receive downward departures, more likely to receive
upward adjustments, and conditioned on having a downward
departure, receive smaller reductions than whites and females.
Keywords: Sentencing, federal courts, Sentencing Reform Act,
Race, Gender, Disparities, US Sentencing Commission, sentencing
guidelines
JEL Classification: K4