The Differential Sentencing of White-Collar Offenders in Ten Federal District Courts

While sociologist have long debated the relationship between the status characteristics of criminal offenders and the sentences they receive, they have done so with data sets drawn from state courts whose prosecutorial resources are focused almost entirely on low status defendants. Qualitative and quantitative data analyzed in this paper are drawn from ten federal district courts whose statutes and resources provide greater potential for the prosecution of the white-collar crimes of higher status offenders. Three questions are addressed: (1) Are there substantial jurisdictional differences in the prosecution of white-collar cases? if so, (2) Are there corresponding jurisdictional differences in the sentencing of white-collar cases? and (3) Within jurisdictions, are there further differences in the factors that influence sentencing decisions in white-collar as compared to other kinds of cases? The data are analyzed from a perspective that emphasizes organizational considerations: we conceptualize the criminal justice process as a loosely coupled system and the use of prosecutorial resources as proactive and reactive. We argue that the expanded prosecution of white-collar persons for their white-collar crimes requires a proactive prosecutorial policy and a tightening of the coupling between plea negotiations and sentencing decisions in the prosecutorial and judicial subsystems. Our quantitative analysis reveals that one district follows a uniquely proactive pattern. As expected, this proactive district also exhibits a unique leniency in the sentencing of college educated white-collar criminals that is related to earlier plea and charging decisions. A rather different and unanticipated pattern of leniency is found in this district for less educated white-collar offenders. A conclusion of this study is that there may be an inverse relationship between the volume of white-collar prosecutions and the severity with which they are sentenced

Criminal Justice Decision Making as a Stratification Process: The Role of Race and Stratification Resources in Pretrial Release

Our purpose is to bridge the criminal justice and stratification research literatures and to pursue the argument that homologous structural principles stratify allocation processes across central institutions of American society. The principle observed here in the making of bail decisions, as in earlier studies of the allocation of earnings, is that stratification resources operate to the greater advantage of whites than blacks. The operation of this principle is established through the estimation of covariance structure models of pretrial release decisions affecting 5660 defendants in 10 federal courts. Education and income are treated in this study as observed components of a composite construct, stratification resources, which works to the greater advantage of whites. Prior record is also found to operate to the greater advantage of whites. Two further variables, dangerousness and community ties, increase bail severity among blacks and whites. While the effect of community ties has been legally legitimized since the Bail Reform Act of 1966, the effect of dangerousness was not so legitimized until the Bail Reform Act of 1984. However, because our data precede the latter act, they confirm that this act simply reinstitutionalized earlier practice. Meanwhile, our race-specific findings may explain why although this and earlier studies find negligible main effects of race on criminal justice outcomes, black Americans nonetheless perceive more criminal injustice than do whites. In the criminal justice system, as in other spheres of American society, whites receive a better return on their resources, but our findings that the statutory severity of the offense and dangerousness work to the relative disadvantage of white defendants’ challenges conflict and labeling theory\u27s one-dimensional characterization of black defendant disadvantage

The Differential Sentencing of White-Collar Offenders in Ten Federal District Courts

While sociologist have long debated the relationship between the status characteristics of criminal offenders and the sentences they receive, they have done so with data sets drawn from state courts whose prosecutorial resources are focused almost entirely on low status defendants. Qualitative and quantitative data analyzed in this paper are drawn from ten federal district courts whose statutes and resources provide greater potential for the prosecution of the white-collar crimes of higher status offenders. Three questions are addressed: (1) Are there substantial jurisdictional differences in the prosecution of white-collar cases? if so, (2) Are there corresponding jurisdictional differences in the sentencing of white-collar cases? and (3) Within jurisdictions, are there further differences in the factors that influence sentencing decisions in white-collar as compared to other kinds of cases? The data are analyzed from a perspective that emphasizes organizational considerations: we conceptualize the criminal justice process as a loosely coupled system and the use of prosecutorial resources as proactive and reactive. We argue that the expanded prosecution of white-collar persons for their white-collar crimes requires a proactive prosecutorial policy and a tightening of the coupling between plea negotiations and sentencing decisions in the prosecutorial and judicial subsystems. Our quantitative analysis reveals that one district follows a uniquely proactive pattern. As expected, this proactive district also exhibits a unique leniency in the sentencing of college educated white-collar criminals that is related to earlier plea and charging decisions. A rather different and unanticipated pattern of leniency is found in this district for less educated white-collar offenders. A conclusion of this study is that there may be an inverse relationship between the volume of white-collar prosecutions and the severity with which they are sentenced