Exam 7: Race and Sentencing: in Search of Fairness and Justice

Sentencing studies from the 1930s through the 1960s usually used __________ statistical techniques.

The term social predators characterizes that segment of the deviant population that is viewed as particularly threatening and dangerous.

The numerous studies of racial disparity in sentencing conducted during the 1970s and 1980s are notable for their low levels of theoretical and methodological sophistication.

Differential treatment of interracial and intraracial sexual assaults continued even after passage of the ________Amendment,which outlawed explicit statutory racial discrimination

Most of the research on sentencing examines the sentences imposed on offenders convicted of felonies.

Reviews of sentencing studies conducted from the 1930s through the 1960s found that most were too limited in scope.

Research has shown that whites are more likely to believe that serving time in prison is less of a hassle than alternative forms of sentencing.

It has been argued that "the recent blackening of America's prison population"¹³⁰ is a result of America's war on drugs.

According to the research on disparity and sentencing,racial minorities are sentenced more harshly when the victim is ________________.

The __________ suggests that jurors deviate from their fact-finding mission in cases in which the evidence against the defendant is weak or contradictory.

The task of assessing the effect of race on sentencing is complicated by the _________,which critics contend has been fought primarily in minority communities.

Research examining the interactions of legally irrelevant sentencing factors has found race,gender,and age to have significant direct effects on sentence severity.

Most sentencing research examines the sentences imposed on offenders convicted of:

Concerns about the changes in the racial/ethnic makeup of a community,coupled with stereotypes linking race and ethnicity to drug use and drug-related crime and violence,may lead to __________ among sentencing officials.

According to Zatz,the issue of __________ in sentencing "may well have been the major research inquiry for studies of sentencing in the 1970s and 1980s."

There is relatively little research testing for racial discrimination in the sentencing of individuals convicted of misdemeanor offenses.Because the lower courts where misdemeanor cases are handled usually have huge caseloads and informal,nonadversarial procedures for delivering what is often referred to as _______________,one might predict that the likelihood of racially disparate decisions would be even greater in these courts than in the more formal felony courts.

The term social __________ to characterize that segment of the deviant population that is viewed as particularly threatening and dangerous.

Steffensmeier and Demuth's study of race and sentencing in Pennsylvania revealed that ________________had the highest likelihood of being incarcerated.

The judge or jury must be free to consider all relevant aggravating and ________ circumstances.

There are _____ types of evidence of racial disparity in sentencing identified by the authors.