Do You Receive a Lighter Prison Sentence Because You Are a Woman? An Economic Analysis of Federal Criminal Sentencing Guidelines

lightning_palm · 2021-12-14T01:12:36+00:00

We find that women receive prison sentences that average a little over 2 years less than those awarded to men. Even after controlling for circumstances such as the severity of the offense and past criminal history, women receive more lenient sentences. Approximately 9.5 months of the female advantage cannot be explained by gender differences in individual circumstances. In other words if women faced the same sentencing structure as men, women would on average receive 15.4 months less prison time than men rather than 24.9 months less prison time. Most of the gender gap arises from convictions via guilty pleas, which account for the vast majority of the convictions observed in our data. Besides gender, we find evidence that judges took into account factors such as family circumstances which are expressly prohibited from consideration when awarding sentences. One should bear in mind that our data permit us to examine only the end stage of the criminal justice system. A more comprehensive treatment would take account of the fact that before arriving at the judge for sentencing, a defendant must also pass through a jury or possible plea bargain with a prosecutor. Before reaching this stage, other groups, such as the police and the prosecution, have the potential to create bias in the criminal justice system.

They studied data from the US. So if women were treated like men in the end stage of the criminal justice system (taking into account the other stages would likely increase this disparity), they would on average serve 24.9 months - 15.4 months = 9.5 months longer. According to the same report, women serve on average 17 months, so if they were treated like men in the end stage of the criminal justice system they would on average serve 26.5 months, i.e. a 56% sentencing length increase.

UnHope20 · 2021-12-14T08:59:47+00:00

Stickied for a week.

Title	Do You Receive a Lighter Prison Sentence Because You Are a Woman? An Economic Analysis of Federal Criminal Sentencing Guidelines
Author	lightning_palm
Upvotes	16
Comments	6
Date	December 14, 2021 1:12 AM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/Male_Studies
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/Male_Studies/comments/rfvcu3/do_you_receive_a_lighter_prison_sentence_because/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/Male_Studies/do-you-receive-a-lighter-prison-sentence-because.1216095 https://theredarchive.com/post/1216095

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