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

IF 2.2 2区社会学 Q1 CRIMINOLOGY & PENOLOGY

Legal and Criminological Psychology Pub Date : 2022-02-09 DOI:10.1111/lcrp.12210

Mia A. Forney, Joyce W. Lacy

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引用次数: 1

Abstract

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.

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罪犯种族/民族对适当刑事判决的公众舆论的影响

在美国刑事司法系统中，判刑差异的历史由来已久，特别是在不同种族或族裔的被告之间。最常见的差异是黑人被告通常比白人被告受到更严厉的判决。本研究通过调查各种罪行中的一系列种族/民族类别，分析了罪犯的种族/民族地位与外行人对适当刑罚的看法之间的关系。方法大学生(实验1,N = 594;实验3 (N = 263)从心理学入门课程和通过Amazon MTurk招募的社区样本(实验2,N = 124)中招募，向他们展示犯罪小插图和罪犯的照片，并要求他们给出他们认为合适的惩罚(以监禁的月数来操作)。参与者还被随机分配，要么接受2018年联邦指南对每种罪行的推荐刑罚，要么不接受。结果:两项研究结果最为显著:1)白人罪犯在攻击犯罪中比其他任何种族/民族被判更严厉;2)罪犯种族/民族在判刑上的显著差异仅在参与者暴露于所有五个种族/民族类别(实验1和2)而不是仅仅暴露于一个种族/民族(实验3)时才显现出来反映了2020年乔治·弗洛伊德被谋杀后的当前社会政治气候。未来的研究可能会从纵向重复这项研究中获益，以评估这些结果的持久性。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Legal and Criminological Psychology Multiple-

CiteScore

4.00

自引率

4.30%

发文量

期刊介绍： Legal and Criminological Psychology publishes original papers in all areas of psychology and law: - victimology - policing and crime detection - crime prevention - management of offenders - mental health and the law - public attitudes to law - role of the expert witness - impact of law on behaviour - interviewing and eyewitness testimony - jury decision making - deception The journal publishes papers which advance professional and scientific knowledge defined broadly as the application of psychology to law and interdisciplinary enquiry in legal and psychological fields.