Abstract
The primary objective of this paper includes exploring extant literature to determine the factors influencing unjust sentencing within the U.S. judicial system. The findings from this review report indicate that some convicts often receive unjust sentences because of the U.S. Federal judges’ racial biases, especially against the most vulnerable minority populations, defendant characteristics including their race and gender, and the broad discretion offered to the judges, parole officials or U.S. attorneys among other essential actors within the U.S. Judicial system. While unjust sentencing has been historically fostered by legislations like the vagrancy and Black Code laws, newer legislations such as the Drug-Free zone laws, discriminatory regulations targeting specific marginalized populations, racial biases of judges against minority communities, defendant factors like gender and race, and the widened discretion of the judicial actors play a significant role in promoting unjust sentencing across the USA.
Unjust sentencing in the U.S. judicial system has long been a significant debate in the literature, given the rising cases of convicts being released from prisons with evidence of unfair convictions. In particular, unfair sentencing mainly refers to the disparate treatment of specific populations or individuals in a manner that is unjustified, which subjects them to unfair, lengthy, or shorter sentences through incarceration (Frase, 2013). The primary objective of this research paper involves exploring the factors that contribute to unjust sentences among specific populations within the USA’s judicial system. Precisely, while laws have been established to safeguard convicts from experiencing unjust sentences across several states in the USA, some convicts often receive unjust sentences because of the U.S. Federal judges’ racial biases, especially against the most vulnerable minority populations, defendant characteristics, including their race and gender, and the broad discretion offered to the judges, parole officials or U.S. attorneys among other essential actors within the U.S. Judicial system.
Historical Overview of the Problem of Unjust Sentencing
Unjust sentencing has historically been a significant social problem impacting specific populations across the USA mainly due to the laws enacted previously and how different actors within the U.S. judicial system make their decisions concerning the sentencing of offenders. In particular, intentionally discriminatory regulations for, for instance,e historically targeted marginalized populations, especially the Blacks sub, ejecting them to unjust and disparate judicial and sentencing processes. For example, the Confederate legislators engaged in a process of intentionally ratifying laws that discriminated against Blacks against Whites called the Black Codes between 1965 and 1968 (Exum, 2021). Although this regulation recognized the Black person’s new American status, they subjected them to discriminate unfair judicial systems in which the Blacks were given substantially longer sentences for crimes similar to those committed by their White counterparts, especially minor crimes. The judicial discrimination that resulted in sentencing the African Americans of the time with lengthier sentences included the barring of Black people from gaining access to a jury appointed to them or their subsequent prevention from testifying in the U.S. courts across many states in the USA.
These established judicial structures mainly promoted judicial business, which has been reported in the literature by several scholars. For instance, Hinton et al. (2018) studied the vagrancy laws enacted due to the Black Codes. They discovered that these legislations primarily promoted unjust arrests and subsequent convictions of African Americans, especially those who were unable to prove beyond reasonable doubt that they worked for White employers. Moreover, some sentences unjustly imposed using the vagrant legislation were often conducted by persons from the private sector instead of the appointed judges by either the state or federal governments. This system whi, which significantly contributed to the increased racial disparities against convicting minor crimes like walking during the night period or without any specified or known purpose, was referred to as the convict leasing system (Clabough, 2020). This system played a significant role in convicting African Americans who committed minor crimes such as those mentioned earlier with longer sentences compared to the Whites suspected of committing similar or minor related offenses.
A few decades preceding the US Civil War experienced a significant increment of racial disparities associated with the nation’s judicial system characterized by biases and distorted notions of criminality among minority communities, especially African Americans and Latinos or Hispanics. In particular, a statistical discourse was created by the constant rise of incarcerations against minority populations primarily based on the belief that they were associated with crimes linked to homicides and drug wars. According to a report recently published by the sentencing project, this discourse has since given rise to negative popularity, along with political imaginations concerning the link of specific criminal acts such as homicides, drug-based crimes, and gang-related criminality to specific marginalized populations such as Latinos or Blacks across several states in the USA (TSP, 2017). Nonetheless, while the historically ratified regulations such as the Black Codes played an essential role in promoting unjust sentencing within the criminal justice system across different states in the USA, this practice has been replicated in some policies and laws that are currently put in place to fight criminal activities at the local and state levels. An example of these laws is discussed vividly in the subsequent section of this report.
Factors Contributing to Unjust Sentencing Across the U.S. Judicial System
Discriminatory Regulations Targeting Specific Marginalized Populations
One of the discriminatory regulations that can be considered similar to the traditional discriminatory laws that contributed to unjust sentencing against marginalized communities currently in effect today is the DFZ (Drug-Free Zone) laws ratified by different states across the USA. Expressly, according to Porter and Clemons (2013), the DFZ regulation’s premise specified that crimes associated with drug trafficking, especially adjacent to learning institutions, posed a significant danger to the learners and the educators within these institutions. In this context, even though the law aimed at punishing and deterring crimes conducted by individuals either selling or using illicit substances near the learning institutions, the law has proved to be a punitive one that largely contributes to the unjust sentencing of criminal members. Specifically, Overman (2014) found that persons who are caught and convicted for crimes linked to either using or selling illicit substances within the free protected zones adjacent to learning institutions often receive punitive and lengthier sentences compared to the persons who have committed similar offenses. For instance, Overman (2014) discovered that the main contributing factor associated with this phenomenon involved the implementation of the War on Drugs that eliminated the nexus to schools and the emphasis on illicit substance sellers and instead dwelled on the distributors and users of rugs of abuse. Most of the individuals who have received punitive and lengthier sentences often originate from minority communities like the Latino and African American populations.
Racial Biasness of Judges Against Minority Communities
Judges and other relevant actors within the US CJS (Criminal Justice System) often engage in biased decision-making processes that ultimately result in unjust sentencing of offenders. As indicated earlier in this report, minority communities have historically been discriminated against by the judicial and private sector practices and legislations that foster unjust sentencing. These factors have, over time, evolved to involve the decision-making processes of the judges and other essential actors within the U.S. judicial system. In particular, the concern of unjust sentencing associated with disparate decision-making processes of the U.S. judiciary is often associated with bias, especially that of the judges. Specifically, even though statistics may suggest that certain crimes, such as drug and gang-related activities, are associated with minority populations like Hispanics or African Americans, most white Judges frequently overemphasize the magnitude and rates of these crimes, linking them with the marginalized communities such as the Blacks or persons living in impoverished conditions. Such judges are highly likely to discount the existence of rampant biases within the U.S. judicial system, along with neglecting the critical consideration that individuals of color and marginalized communities like Asians, Blacks, Hispanics, and Latinos have long been oppressed and disproportionately linked to criminal activities such as drug-based or gang-related crimes. Consequently, the racial biases of these judicial actors often take a significant toll on minority offenders, who are highly likely to receive unjust sentences compared to their White counterparts who committed similar offenses. According to Hill (2018), federal prosecutors were more likely to make decisions to prosecute African Americans charged with offenses associated with minimum mandatory sentences than they did for their White counterparts who committed similar offenses.
Defendant Characteristics
Another factor contributing to the unjust sentencing phenomenon includes defendant characteristics, particularly race and gender. Specifically, race is a fundamental factor contributing to sentencing disparities because judicial actors and media technology often produce stereotyping images that associate certain major criminal activities like gang-related crimes to specific marginalized communities such as Hispanics and African Americans. In this context, such attributions and labeling practices can contribute to routinizing unjust sentencing practices, especially among judges with an implicit bias toward those images.
Another important factor involves the gender of the offenders. In particular, female criminals have historically been associated with receiving more lenient sentencing durations compared to the males who committed similar crimes. For instance, Anderson et al. (2020) noted that judges and other judicial actors often thought of female alleged offenders as having a lesser likelihood of repeating future criminal acts and behaviors, contributing to their influence in minimizing the offender’s sentence severity as opposed to their male counterparts. Moreover, recent research led by Philippe (2020) indicated that females were highly likely to receive lenient and lesser sentences compared to men who conducted similar criminal acts and received punitive and lengthier sentences.
Broadened Discretion of the U.S. Judicial Actors
Another essential factor contributing to unjust sentencing across the United States includes the widened discretion offered to the parole or law enforcement officers, United States Attorneys, and judges, which promotes disparate treatments associated with the CJS. In particular, these judicial actors are often subjected to a lack of explicit guidance, which leaves significant room for them to make individual judgments concerning the fencing of offenders. In this context, Stith (2007) contended that reasonable persons might differ considerably in matters associated with sentencing and offering final verdicts to the defendants because of the diversity of their abilities, experiences, and learn techniques to handle the best situations arising from different cases. Moreover, each judge’s philosophy often determines the type of objectives or a combination of the essential goals emphasized in making effective judgments. Goals such as punishment, incapacitation, deterrence, and rehabilitation objectives play a fundamental role in offering the final crucial decision associated with the defendant’s sentence; they frequently result in disparate sentencing.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this research paper has explored extant literature to determine factors contributing to unjust sentencing associated with the relevant systems, actors, and decision-making processes of these actors within the United States judicial system. In particular, one of the contributing factors identified includes the traditional and current legislations that promote disparate sentencing in the U.S. judiciary, such as the Black Codes and the Drug-Free Zone regulations. These regulations mainly promote race-based, ethnic-related, and socioeconomic-based practices of unjust sentencing associated with racial bias in the judiciary. Another important factor identified in this text involves defendant characteristics, specifically their race and gender, which influence stereotyping that positions marginalized communities at risk of receiving lengthier sentences. Another essential factor contributing to unjust sentencing across the United States includes the widened discretion offered to the judicial actors, especially the judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement personnel. In particular, the widened discretion subjects the judicial actors to lack explicit guidance, which leaves significant room for them to make individual judgments or decisions concerning the fencing of offenders. Some judges will likely make uninformed decisions that favor certain groups over others in their sentencing verdicts.
References
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