The question of discrimination in sentencing is an issue that continues to be a source of controversy in the social sciences. Authors such as William Willbanks (1987) have concluded that after controlling legally relevant variables there is no significant effect of race on sentencing. Other researchers such as Hagan and Bumiller (1983) have noted that the relationship between race and sentencing may be dependent on context. This research is the first to apply a contextual analysis to examine possible racial discrimination in the application of the habitual offender statute in Florida. The sample consists of 9,645 male inmates sentenced to the Florida Department of Corrections in fiscal year 1992-1993, who were eligible for habitualization. / Logistic regression models show a strong and significant impact of race (black) on the odds of being sentenced as an habitual offender. This significant impact became stronger under a variety of economic and structural controls. The impact of race was significant both as a main effect and in interaction with other variables, especially drug offenses. The Ordinary Least Squares analysis for sentence length did not show a significant impact of race, as demonstrated in previous research (Chiricos and Crawford, 1995). The theoretical implications of the context of sentencing are discussed. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 57-02, Section: A, page: 0871. / Major Professor: Theodore G. Chiricos. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_77656 |
| Contributors | Crawford, Charles Edward, II., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 102 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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