The title of this post is the title of this recent research paper authored by John MacDonald and Steven Raphael that I just came across. Here is its abstract:
Research Summary
In late 2014, California voters passed Proposition 47 that redefined a set of less serious felony drug and property offenses as misdemeanors. We examine how racial disparities in criminal court dispositions in San Francisco change in the years before (2010-2014) and after (2015-2016) the passage of Proposition 47. We decompose racial disparities in court dispositions into components due to racial differences in offense characteristics, involvement in the criminal justice system at the time of arrest, pretrial detention, criminal history, and the residual unexplained component. Before and after Proposition 47 case characteristics explain nearly all of the observable race disparities in court dispositions. However, after the passage of Proposition 47 there is a narrowing of racial disparities in convictions and incarceration sentences that is driven by lesser weight placed on criminal history, active criminal justice status, and pretrial detention in effecting court dispositions.
Policy Implications
The findings from this study suggest that policy reforms that scale back the severity of punishment for criminal history and active criminal justice status for less serious felony offenses may help narrow racial inequalities in criminal court dispositions. Efforts to reduce the impact of racial inequalities in mass incarceration in other states should consider reforms that reduce the weight that criminal history, pretrial detention, and active probation status has on criminal defendants’ eligibility for prison for less serious drug and property offenses.
No comments:
Post a Comment