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

长期以来，对犯罪和惩罚的研究一直关注刑事判决中的种族和民族差异，事实上，许多研究发现了法庭处理理论通常预测的结果：即使考虑到罪犯的犯罪历史和犯罪严重程度，黑人和西班牙裔人平均受到的判决比白人更严厉。然而，这一领域的先前工作很少考虑种族群体内部和种族群体之间存在的实质性异质性。例如，巴拉克·奥巴马总统、克拉伦斯·托马斯大法官和总统顾问瓦莱丽·贾勒特都是非洲裔美国人，但他们的肤色明显不同。目前的研究调查了这种肤色差异是否会影响美国刑事法院的判决。此外，该研究还调查了被告的面部特征，如非洲中心特征、面部纹身或其他不一致的指标是否会影响惩罚结果，以及这些因素可能取决于法官种族的程度。这些和相关的问题激发了本研究，该研究系统地调查了罪犯肤色和外表对刑事判决结果的影响。从明尼苏达州两个县的大量男性罪犯样本中提取的拘留照片根据几个标准进行编码，从而允许对颜色和外观效果进行分析。这些数据与明尼苏达州量刑指导委员会的量刑信息相结合，该委员会对2009年大约1000名被判重罪的男性进行了抽样调查。除了白人和黑人被告的随机样本外，西班牙裔、亚裔和印第安人也被过度抽样，以便对这些研究不足的群体进行分析。这项研究为正在进行的关于社会种族平等的辩论提供了独特的知识，并显著推进了现有的关于美国刑事司法系统中涉及无端差异的决策过程和结果的研究和理论。这些发现还为有关量刑指南的政策辩论提供了信息，并可能通过确定肤色（而不仅仅是绝对的种族）在司法殿堂中是否重要，将种族和惩罚的研究推向一个新的方向。

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.