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A theoretical and empirical critique of racial innocence in sentencing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2025

Marisa Omori*
Affiliation:
Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Missouri-St. Louis, Saint Louis, MS, USA
Alessandra Milagros Early
Affiliation:
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, New York, NY, USA
Luis Torres
Affiliation:
Temple University, Philadelphia, PS, USA
*
Corresponding author: Marisa Omori; Email: marisa.omori@umsl.edu

Abstract

Despite large-scale racial inequalities across multiple social domains, racial innocence highlights the complacency of the law and social science research in denying racial power through race neutral assumptions. We explore three theoretical and methodological mechanisms maintaining racial innocence within quantitative social science: treating unequal structural conditions and organizational practices as impartial, isolating samples to reflect limited stages, and focusing on individual levels of analysis. Given that mass incarceration is one of the most visible modern-day exemplars of racial subordination in the United States, we use the example of incarceration sentencing to highlight these mechanisms. Using case processing data from Miami-Dade County between 2012 and 2015 (N = 86,340), we first examine racial inequality in incarceration sentencing when treating unequal case characteristics impartially across racial groups relative to when we allow case characteristics to be unequal across racial groups. Second, we examine racial inequality when isolating limited samples with narrow decision points relative to when we draw from samples across multiple stages. Finally, we examine racial inequality with individual-level frameworks relative to a neighborhood level frameworks. In this case, racial inequalities in incarceration sentencing with a racially consciousness approach are twice as large than with a racially innocent one.

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Article
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Law and Society Association.

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