Title: Black men sentenced to more time for committing the exact same crime as a white person, study finds - The Washington Post
Headings: Black men sentenced to more time for committing the exact same crime as a white person, study finds
Black men sentenced to more time for committing the exact same crime as a white person, study finds
Content: Whether done consciously or not, prosecutors are more likely to charge African Americans with such charges than whites.” A 2014 University of Michigan Law School study, for instance, found that all other factors being equal, black offenders were 75 percent more likely to face a charge carrying a mandatory minimum sentence than a white offender who committed the same crime. “It's possible that if a prosecutor now recognizes that a judge is not constrained by the [pre-Booker] guidelines,” Mauer said, “he or she may charge a case as a mandatory sentence to ensure that a certain amount of prison time is imposed, with no possible override by the judge.” Story continues below advertisement
The United States currently houses the world's largest prison population, with an incarceration rate of roughly 666 inmates per 100,000 people. Among whites, the rate is 450 inmates per 100,000 people. The incarceration rate for blacks is over five times higher, at 2,306 inmates per 100,000 people. The USSC report indicates that sentencing decisions are a big driver of those numbers. And according to the University of Michigan study, at the federal level alone simply eliminating the sentencing disparity would reduce the number of black men in federal prisons by about 9 percent and save taxpayers at least $230 million a year. Today's Headlines
The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning. Today’s Headlines
The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning.