Legal and extra-legal variables in sentencing outcomes: The effect of race and gender.

Abstract

A long debate has existed in criminal justice literature about the effects of legal variables and extra-legal variables on sentencing. The debate centers on the importance of each type of variable and the effects produced on the length of sentence handed down by judges in the trial process and district attorneys through plea-bargaining. One side of the debate focuses on the importance of legal factors, such as the severity of the offense, the type of crime committed, and the amount of prior involvement with the criminal justice system. The other side of the debate focuses on the influence of extra-legal variables, such as age, race, sex, education, or socio-economic status.

The study also indicates that legal and extra-legal variables have differing effects on men and women. Legal variables explain more of the variance in the regression models for men, whereas, extra-legal variables play a stronger role in sentence length outcomes for women. Finally, the models used in the analysis explain more of the variance for women than men.

The study indicates that Oklahoma, with the exception of African Americans, does not use minority group status as a basis for sentencing after controlling for legal and extra-legal factors. The significance of race, while present, is not a strong predictor of sentence length. Notably, women of each minority group are not sentenced differently than their male counterpart. The results also indicate that regardless of gender, Oklahoma sentencing patterns follow a patriarchal structure, in that women appear to be protected by the criminal justice system.

The current study explores the effects of both legal and extra-legal variables on sentencing outcomes. The study uses only those offenders sentenced to incarceration, comparing the sentence length handed down by the judge. The study examines the sentence length for 5,357 offenders sentenced in the calendar year 2001 in the state of Oklahoma. The unique focus of this study is on differences in racial minorities and gender groups using a feminist perspective. The feminist perspective calls for separate analysis of men and women. Most previous studies use gender as a control variable, but this study provides comparisons within each minority group between men and women.