Gender and sentencing: A meta-analysis of contemporary research

Abstract

I. IntroductionThere are currently over one million women under the supervision of the United States criminal justice system.2 This includes more than 100,000 women incarcerated in local jails and federal and state prisons.3 These statistics are not entirely surprising given that since 1985, women have been entering prison at twice the rate of males and now represent the fastest-growing segment of the United States prison population.4 Scholars credit amplified law enforcement efforts, changes to state and federal sentencing guidelines, and equality with a vengeance for the dramatic growth in the female prison population.5 Statistics reveal that the number of female arrests has risen 34% from the early 1980s through 2000.6 However, the 34% increase in arrests provides only a partial explanation for the 400% jump in female imprisonment.7Changes in state and federal sentencing policies are, by far, the most commonly cited cause of the expansion in the female prison population.8 Researchers point specifically to the war on drugs and associated sentencing policies as being primarily responsible for new trends in female sentencing practices.9 As a result of these policies and practices, women stand a higher chance of serving time for drug offenses than men.10Shifts from indeterminate to determinate sentencing structures at both the state and federal levels could have also had a potentially negative impact on female In the push to eliminate judicial discretion and create a one-size-fits-all sentencing scheme, policymakers chose equal sentencing over special treatment of female offenders. This choice effectively ended judicial consideration for mitigating circumstances such as family obligations, and has translated into longer prison terms for women.12 As documented by Daly and Tonry, determinate sentencing guidelines are based on average sentences for men or on an average for men's and women's sentences.13 The development of sentencing grids based on male or male/female averages equalizes justice by increasing female prison terms to the equivalent of their male counterparts.14 Researchers are now beginning to explore the impact of these policy changes on women in the criminal justice system.During the past twenty years, there has been an indisputable rise in the number of women serving prison sentences.15 The expanding female prison population is often linked to contemporary shifts in federal and state sentencing policies.16 However, empirical investigations of the relationships among these phenomena have produced inconsistent findings. Three of the most recent studies on gender and sentencing report that judicial decisionmaking favors female over male offenders.17 Other scholars report no substantive differences in sentencing outcomes between women and men, after controlling for legal and demographic characteristics.18Inconsistent scientific findings produced by gender/sentencing research are not entirely unexpected given the considerable differences in data, methodology, and statistical analyses found among sentencing studies. Daly and Bordt's study, Sex Effects and Sentencing: A Review of the Statistical Literature, is the most recent attempt to control for methodological variations and synthesize this body of work.19 Their review of over forty sentencing studies published between 1960 and 1990 found that women were generally at an advantage over male defendants in sentencing decisions.20Since the early 1990s, sentencing practice has undergone a major transformation with the implementation of sentencing guidelines, mandatory sentencing, and get tough policies.21 Sentencing research is also evolving to include the examination of the indirect and interactive effects of explanatory variables in analytic models and multilevel interactions between place, judicial culture, and individual characteristics.22 Daly and Bordt's study is still relevant to understanding how gender impacts sentencing, but with the changes in sentencing policy and research, there is a wealth of new scholarship on this this topic that should inform this discussion. …