A Punishing Look: Skin Tone, Facial Features, and Criminal Sentencing

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Research on crime and punishment has long been concerned with racial and ethnic disparities in criminal sentencing, and indeed many studies have found what theories of court processing generally predict: blacks and Hispanics are on average sentenced more harshly than whites, even when taking into account the offender's criminal history and crime severity. Yet prior work in this area rarely considers the substantial heterogeneity that exists within and between racial groups. For instance, President Barack Obama, Justice Clarence Thomas and Presidential Advisor Valerie Jarrett each identify as African American, but they differ markedly in their skin tone. The present research investigates whether such differences in skin color are consequential for decisions made in American criminal courts. In addition, the research examines whether facial characteristics of defendants, such as Afrocentric features, facial tattoos, or other indicators of non-conformity influence punishment outcomes, as well as the extent that these factors might be contingent on the race of the judge. These and related questions motivate this research, which systematically investigates the effects of offender skin tone and physical appearance on criminal sentencing outcomes. Booking photos from a large sample of male offenders in two Minnesota counties are coded on several criteria, thus allowing for an analysis of color and appearance effects. These data are combined with sentencing information from the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission for a sample of approximately 1,000 males convicted of felonies in 2009. In addition to random samples of white and black defendants, Hispanic, Asian, and Native Americans are oversampled to enable analyses of these understudied groups. This study contributes unique knowledge to ongoing debates over racial equality in society and significantly advances extant research and theorizing on decision making processes and outcomes involving unwarranted disparities in the American criminal justice system. The findings also inform policy debates concerning sentencing guidelines and may push the study of race and punishment in a new direction by determining whether skin hue, and not merely categorical race, matters in the halls of justice.