The purpose of this dissertation is to examine factors that affect sentencing decisions of Latino and Haitian immigrants. Although scholarly research has consistently demonstrated that foreign-born populations are less likely than native born citizens to commit crime, many U.S citizens continue to believe that larger immigrant populations contribute to higher crime rates and other social problems. It is unclear whether these widespread public opinions about foreign-born populations translate into harsher punishment for immigrants. To date, only a few studies have explored punishment of immigrant populations in the criminal justice system, and there is a paucity of scholarly research assessing whether sentencing decisions vary across foreign-born groups. Using Blalock’s (1967) threat perspective, the study investigates the effect of immigrant threat on the sentencing outcomes of two sizeable foreign-born groups – Latinos and Haitians. Because Haitian and Latino immigrants have rapidly increased over the past few decades (U.S. Census 2010), there is strong reason to believe that salient fears among the U.S. populace towards them might shape the application of punishment. Previous criminological research has largely ignored immigrants’ differences which limits our understanding about how punishment varies across these groups. The data for this project are taken from the Florida Department of Corrections Sentencing Guidelines database and the Offender Based Information System, and they are appropriate for use in this study for several reasons. First, Florida is an excellent context for this research because it has a sizeable Latino and Haitian immigrant population that has substantially increased within the last decade (U.S. Census Bureau 2010). Second, the Florida Sentencing Guidelines data includes demographic and legally relevant information about the current offense as well as prior criminal justice involvement on foreign-born defendants convicted of felonies. Additionally, the data contain records of the country of origin for each foreign-born defendant which allows for an analysis of sentencing decisions across two different immigrant populations. Finally, the sentencing guidelines provide a unique opportunity to extend sentencing research by assessing the complex ways legal and extralegal factors influence criminal sentencing outcomes. The contextual measures at the county levels were extracted from the U.S. Census Data and the Uniform Crime Report. Logistic and ordinary linear regression modeling techniques are utilized to explore the effects of immigrant threat on criminal sentencing. The results provide some support for the minority threat perspective, and its effect on the sentencing severity of foreign-born groups. It is the case that Latino immigrants are more likely to be sentenced to prison in counties a with larger foreign-born populations, and this effect is more pronounced in settings experiencing high levels of white unemployment. In contrast, the relative size of foreign-born populations and white economic disadvantage do not significantly increase the probability of Haitian immigrants receiving prison sentences. However, the multiplicative models suggest that it does affect their prison sentence lengths. Haitians tend to serve longer prison sentences in counties with a larger percentage of immigrants, which are shaped by high levels of economically disadvantaged whites. The findings show that both perceived immigrant and economic threat are salient in the processing of immigrants in the criminal justice system. The theoretical, and policy implications of the findings are discussed. The dissertation concludes by highlighting limitations of this study and providing recommendations for future research. / A Dissertation submitted to the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2017. / July 17, 2017. / Haitians, Immigrants, Latinos, Sentencing Outcomes / Includes bibliographical references. / Patricia Y. Warren Hightower, Professor Directing Dissertation; Patrice Iatarola, University Representative; Eric A. Stewart, Committee Member; William Bales, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_552331 |
| Contributors | Neptune, Malisa Nneka (authoraut), Warren, Patricia Y. (Patricia Yvonne) (professor directing dissertation), Iatarola, Patrice (university representative), Stewart, Eric Allen (committee member), Bales, William D. (committee member), Florida State University (degree granting institution), College of Criminology and Criminal Justice (degree granting college), College of Criminology and Criminal Justice (degree granting departmentdgg) |
| Publisher | Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text, doctoral thesis |
| Format | 1 online resource (135 pages), computer, application/pdf |
Page generated in 0.0019 seconds