Emily BushnellHypotheses and motivation We are studying the criminal justice system’s sentencing because we want to find out if the race of the criminal has an effect on the sentence length involving murder cases within the federal jurisdiction of the United States, in order to help the readers understand if fair treatment is being given under the Sixth Amendment. Does prior history and race effect the severity of a criminals federal murder sentence in the United States of America? The Null Hypothesis (Ho) is prior history does not play a role in sentencing when involving murder cases within the federal jurisdiction of the United States. While the Alternative Hypothesis (H1) is prior history does not play a role in sentencing when involving murder cases within the federal jurisdiction of the United States. Abramm, Bertan and Mullainathan in their study of “Do Judges Vary in Their Treatment of Race” found that race played a role in conviction rate but were sentenced similarly to the white offenders. Everate and Wojtkiewics found that race does play a role in sentencing and that minorities are sentenced at a higher rate than the other white offenders in their study “Difference, Disparity, and Race/Ethnic Bias in Federal Sentencing”. Description of concepts, data, and measurement (25 points) Our independent variables from Harvard’s DataVerse included, race (White vs People of Color as defined by the US Census Bureau, murder 1 classification, and the prior history of each defendent. Our dependent variable was the sentencing length in years. Using the initial data that Lorrie presented, I added the variable of prior history and it showed that the prior history did increase the sentence by an average of 5.796 years but is not significantly significant. With the concepts of race with the description of all 5 categories, the federal murder definition, and the severity of punishment being defined in Lorries post below. I added the prior history to see if the more crimes an individual committed prior to a Murder 1 charge added more time. The prior history is broken up into the number of charges, ranging from 0-10 prior charges. What the prior charges consisted of were not included in the data set which could also play a role in the addition of years to a sentence or play no role at all as well as the margin of error increased the larger the number of prior charges. Presentation of analysis and results (25 points): As Lorrie presented below, race (white individuals with a value of 1, and all other races with a 2 value), murder 1 (murder run as a value of 1, and other crimes with a value of 0) , and the sentencing in years had significant significance of 0.111 and 0.101. Prior history has a significance of 0.269 when run with race, murder 1, and sentencing in years meaning that it plays a role but that is not significantly significant. With this data we would have to accept the null hypothesis. Works Cited:
David S. Abrams, Marianne Bertrand, & Sendhil Mullainathan. (2012). Do Judges Vary in Their Treatment of Race? The Journal of Legal Studies, 41(2), 347. https://doi.org/10.1086/666006 Ronald S. Everett, & Roger A. Wojtkiewicz. (2002). Difference, Disparity, and Race/Ethnic Bias in Federal Sentencing. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 18(2), 189. Retrieved from https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.23366801&site=eds-live&scope=site United States Sentencing Commission. “PDF.” 2010. https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/federal-sentencing-statistics/quarterly-sentencing-updates/USSC_2010_Quarter_Report_Final.pdf US Census Bureau. “About Race.” About, United States Census Bureau, 23 Jan. 2018, https://www.census.gov/topics/population/race/about.html. “18 U.S. Code § 1111 - Murder.” Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1111.
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