Race Out-Of-Place Arrests and Focal Concerns in the Courtroom

• In Event: 4155 - Section on Crime, Law, and Deviance Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 5. Effects of Race & Place on Policing Policy and Practice

Abstract

Studies of policing reveal a race-out-of-place effect, wherein individuals who appear racially out-of-place are more likely to generate suspicion among and be treated more punitively by law enforcement officers (Carroll and Gonzalez 2014; Meehan and Ponder 2002). While courts and sentencing scholars have begun to acknowledge neighborhood effects on case outcomes (Omori 2017; Wooldredge 2012), no studies have examined whether there is a race-out-of-place effect in the courtroom setting. However, according to focal concerns theory, community protection is one of the primary factors that court actors take into consideration when processing defendants (Steffensmeier, Kramer, and Streifel 1993). Moreover, because negative stereotyping has cast Black individuals as ‘symbolic assailants’ (Skolnick 1985), it seems probable that the location of arrest may factor into punishment decisions. In this paper we use unique case-level data from Miami-Dade County, FL., from years 2010 to 2015, to examine how incongruence between an individual’s race and the racial composition of the arrest neighborhood influences the defendant’s bond amount, pretrial detention, final disposition, and sentencing. The results suggest that the effect of a racially-incongruent arrest differs across outcomes and that these effects are, in some cases, moderated by the defendant’s race.

Author

• Rachel Lautenschlager, University of Miami