Can Focal Concerns Theory Account for Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Sentencing? A Direct Test

• In Event: Race, Ethnicity, and Criminal Sentencing

Abstract

The focal concerns theory of decision-making argues that sentencing decisions reflect judges’ beliefs about three primary considerations: blameworthiness of the defendant, protection of the community, and practical concerns. This perspective has been used as the theoretical foundation in an abundance of research and has proven particularly useful as a framework for explaining sentencing disparities related to offenders’ demographic characteristics. Little work, however, has been able to quantitatively link the three focal concerns to sentencing outcomes. Using a dataset that combines official county court records from Essex County, New Jersey, with case-level judicial surveys, this research offers an explicit test of focal concerns theory. It measures judicial assessments of each focal concern for each court case and then evaluates the extent to which these assessments explain racial and ethnic disparities in two sentencing decisions: the decision to incarcerate, and the determination of sentence length.

Author

• Rebecca Richardson, University of Maryland, College Park