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

关于犯罪和惩罚的研究长期以来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情况：黑人和西班牙裔人平均比白人被判更严厉，即使考虑到罪犯的犯罪历史和犯罪严重程度。 然而，这一领域的先前工作很少考虑种族群体内部和之间存在的实质性异质性。 例如，总统巴拉克奥巴马、大法官克拉伦斯托马斯和总统顾问瓦莱丽贾勒特都认为自己是非洲裔美国人，但他们的肤色明显不同。目前的研究调查是否在肤色的这种差异是在美国刑事法院作出的决定的后果。 此外，该研究还考察了被告的面部特征，如非洲中心特征，面部纹身或其他不符合标准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这项研究，系统地调查罪犯的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男性罪犯的大样本预订照片编码的几个标准，从而允许分析的颜色和外观效果。 这些数据与明尼苏达州量刑指南委员会提供的2009年约1 000名被判重罪的男性样本的量刑信息相结合。 除了白色和黑人被告的随机样本外，西班牙裔，亚洲人和美洲原住民也被过度抽样，以使这些研究不足的群体能够进行分析。这项研究贡献了独特的知识，正在进行的辩论种族平等的社会和显着推进现存的研究和理论化的决策过程和结果，涉及不必要的差距，在美国刑事司法系统。 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霍尔斯中是否重要，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.