Petty criminals who are black are more likely to be jailed in the US than their white counterparts and serve longer sentences for low severity crimes, according to new research that points to racial bias in court sentencing decisions. Researchers explored if, how and when race factors in criminal sentencing by analysing more than 17,000 decisions from South Carolina in the US.
The study by researchers from University of Sheffield in the UK and University of Minnesota in the US highlights inequalities in incarceration rates and sentence lengths for minority offenders. The research tested the “liberation hypothesis”, which concerns how much flexibility judges have when sentencing, depending on the relevant case facts.