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Gender Differences in Criminal Sentencing - University of Texas

Kellner, Thursday, 08.09.2011, 01:48 (vor 4585 Tagen) @ Manifold

Objective. Many studies find that females benefit from their gender in sentencing decisions. Few researchers, however, address whether the gender-sentencing association might be stronger for some crimes, such as minor nonviolent offending, and weaker for other offenses, such as serious violent crime. Method. Using a large random sample of convicted offenders in Texas drawn from a statewide project on sentencing practices mandated by the 73rd Texas Legislature, logistic regression and OLS regression analyses of likelihood of imprisonment and prison length illustrate the importance of looking at sentencing outcomes not only in terms of gender but also in terms of crime type. Results. Specifically, we find that the effect of gender on sentencing does vary by crime type, but not in a consistent or predicted fashion. For both property and drug offending, females are less likely to be sentenced to prison and also receive shorter sentences if they are sentenced to prison. For violent offending, however, females are no less likely than males to receive prison time, but for those who do, females receive substantially shorter sentences than males. Conclusions. We conclude that such variation in the gender-sentencing association across crime type is largely due to features of Texas' legal code that channel the level of discretion available to judges depending on crime type and whether incarceration likelihood or sentence length is examined.
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The sentencing of criminals has been the subject of repeated exploratory inquiry by social scientists, particularly sociologists. Since the work of Nagel and Weitzman (1971) and Pope (1975), who found that women appear to receive preferential treatment in sentencing over males, efforts to explain this disparity have centered around two theories: chivalry and the more recent focal concerns. As our literature review highlights, efforts to decipher how the sentencing process may benefit females are, at times, inconsistent. We view our study as additional fuel to the sentencing dialogue and, in particular, as an effort to address the variation across studies and gain a better understanding of the influence of gender on sentencing.
In the early 1980s, Candace Kruttschnitt and Donald E. Green (1984:541) wondered whether, compared to males, the leniency typically accorded females at sentencing might become "history." However, the potential demise of gender-based preferential treatment has not come to fruition. To the contrary, findings that women receive milder sentences than men continue, with few exceptions, to be robust. For example, extensive literature reviews by Daly and Bordt (1995) and by Steffensmeier, Kramer, and Streifel (1993) stress the strength and consistency of the association between gender and sentencing and its relevance for scholars seeking to understand sentencing outcomes. Furthermore, when compared to other extra-legal factors, such as offender age or race/ethnicity, the influence of offender gender is touted as the most powerful by both Steffensmeier, Ulmer, and Kramer (1998) and Spohn and Holleran (2000; see also Daly and Bordt, 1995).
The vast majority of research shows that adult female offenders tend to receive milder sentences than male offenders. However, certain key questions remain unanswered. For example, in spite of dozens of studies, relatively few efforts have assessed whether offender-gender effects on sentencing might vary across crime type (but see Farnworth and Teske, 1995; Koons-Witt, 2002; Mustard, 2001; Steffensmeier, Kramer, and Streifel, 1993). Of those studies that address this issue, most compare outcomes for only two different types of crime (i.e., Farnworth and Teske, 1995; Koons-Witt, 2002), and only the Farnworth and Teske (1995) study specifically considers whether offender-gender effects on sentencing might vary across crime type. The relative inattention from both theoretical and empirical research to the potential for crime type to condition the effect of gender on sentencing argues for further study of this issue.
Toward this end, we employ a large representative multijurisdictional sample of criminal dispositions in Texas during 1991 to test whether gender affects sentencing severity and whether this relationship might vary across violent, property, and drug crime.
Offender Gender and Sentencing
The prediction that females will receive milder sentencing outcomes receives such consistent support from a wide range of studies done since the 1980s, and encompassing many different jurisdictions in the United States, that it may be one of the best established facts regarding criminal justice outcomes. This research shows that the greatest disparity among the sexes occurs at the "in/out decision"--whether criminal sentences entail incarceration or some nonincarcerative sanction, such as probation. Research findings typically show that females are between 12 percent and 23 percent less likely than males to receive prison or jail time (see Farnworth and Teske, 1995; Ghali and Chesney-Lind, 1986; Gruhl, Welch, and Spohn, 1984; Johnson, Kennedy, and Shuman, 1987; Mustard, 2001; Nobiling, Spohn, and DeLone, 1998; Spohn, 1999; Spohn and Beichner, 2000; Spohn and Holleran, 2000; Steffensmeier, Kramer, and Streifel, 1993; Steffensmeier, Ulmer, and Kramer, 1998; Ulmer, 2000; Wooldredge, 1998; but see Kruttschnitt and Green, 1984). Yet, for those men and women who do receive prison sentences, gender effects, while strong, are not as consistent. Females receive shorter or less severe sentences according to the findings of Bushway and Piehl (2001), Curran (1983), Engen and Gainey (2000), Farnworth and Teske (1995), Mustard (2001), Steffensmeier, Ulmer, and Kramer (1998), and Ulmer (2000), but no gender differences in sentence length were observed by Albonetti (1991), Crew (1991), Nobiling, Spohn, and DeLone (1998), Steffensmeier, Kramer, and Streifel (1993), or Wooldredge (1998).
A few studies show that females actually receive harsher treatment than males, but these findings pertain to juveniles (Chesney-Lind, 1977; Chesney-Lind and Shelden, 2004) or derive from historical data (Boritch, 1992). Other studies find that only married women or those with children receive milder sentences (Daly, 1987, 1989; Koons-Witt, 2002). However, research by Mustard (2001) and Spohn (1999; Spohn and Beichner, 2000) finds that "familied" women were just as likely as those without families to receive milder sentences than men. Adding to the picture, recent findings by Curry, Lee, and Rodriguez (2004) show that the gender of crime victims may also influence sentencing outcomes. Succinctly put, while the effect of offender gender on sentencing receives considerable support, this support is stronger and more consistent at the in/out stage than for sentence length, and this association may to some extent depend on women's family status and on the gender of crime victims.
In addition to a large body of empirical findings, theoretical research seeking to explain how and why female offenders tend to receive milder sentences is also extensive. Two main theoretical strands stand out. The chivalry thesis dates to the 1970s and is premised on cultural stereotypes about gender, while the more recent focal concerns theory looks specifically at the dynamics of judicial decision making.
The chivalry thesis posits that gendered stereotypes about both women and men influence sentencing outcomes according to the sex of offenders. Sometimes called paternalism, chivalry asserts that women are stereotyped as fickle and childlike, and therefore not fully responsible for their criminal behavior. Women therefore need to be protected by males who, with all due gallantry, are portrayed as wanting to minimize any pain or suffering women might experience. According to the chivalry thesis, when these stereotypes are played out in the arena of the criminal justice system, they will result in preferential treatment for female offenders from predominantly male police officers, prosecutors, and judges (Crew, 1991; Farnworth and Teske, 1995; Parisi, 1982; Rafter and Stanko, 1982). Thus, prevailing stereotypes about men and women are predicted by the chivalry thesis to underlie outcomes showing milder criminal sentences for women.
More recent views on gender and sentencing issues stem from three somewhat related concepts: bounded rationality (Albonetti, 1991), focal concerns (Steffensmeier, Kramer, and Streifel, 1993; Steffensmeier, Ulmer, and Kramer, 1998), and blameworthiness attribution (Baumer, Messner, and Felson, 2000). These theories share a common denominator--that the relationship between gender and sentencing is the byproduct of human error expressed in judicial outcomes. Because it has been more extensively researched and developed, we will concentrate on focal concerns theory. According to this view, constraints on the amount of time judges can spend on their cases and other factors mean that judges generally receive incomplete information on defendants and their cases. Confronted with these restrictions, judicial decisions on sentencing outcomes are thereby infused, to some extent, with generalizations and personal bias. Judges and other court players commonly make contextual attributions about the defendant's culpability, character, and potential recidivism based on three focal concerns: blameworthiness, dangerousness (community protection), and practical constraints. They may, for example, attribute certain qualities to offenders based on their gender. Female offenders may be viewed as less of a risk to the community or to reoffend (Albonetti, 1991), while male offenders may be seen as more culpable and, hence, more responsible for their crimes (Baumer, Messner, and Felson, 2000; Steffensmeier, Ulmer, and Kramer, 1998). Males may also be portrayed as better able to do "time" in prison or jail than females (Steffensmeier, Ulmer, and Kramer, 1998). Combined, these focal concerns represent an apparatus that judges may rely on to manage ambiguity. Because of their content, such focal concerns may lead to females being less likely to receive incarceration and, if they do, shorter sentences than males (Steffensmeier, Kramer, and Streifel, 1993; Steffensmeier, Ulmer, and Kramer, 1998; Ulmer and Kramer, 1996).
Offender Gender and Sentencing Across Crime Type
A great deal of theoretical and empirical research explores whether gender influences sentencing outcomes in general; however, some …

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-146691840/gender-differences-criminal-sentencing.html


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