The Imprisonment Penalty: Citizenship, Ethnicity and Mock Sentencing Decisions in the "Age of Color Blindness"

• In Event: Poster Session II

Abstract

This study examined the propensity of students to inflict an imprisonment penalty (i.e. an increased likelihood of assigning an incarceration sentence) against offenders based on their country of origin-ethnicity and legal status. Participants were randomly assigned to one of nine survey frames containing a mock scenario in which an offender is found guilty of driving while intoxicated. Individual frames varied the offender’s legal status and country of origin-ethnicity. Participants were then asked to assign to the offender a punishment (incarceration or no incarceration) and to rate the level of criminality they associated with the offender. A Chi Square analysis provided conditional support (at the 0.10 level) for the hypothesis that an offender’s legal status significantly influences the decision to incarcerate for these hypothetical cases. Analysis of results also demonstrated support (at the 0.01 level) for the hypothesis that an offender’s country of origin- ethnicity significantly influences the decision to incarcerate. Furthermore, there appeared to be an interaction effect between country of origin-ethnicity and legal status which suggests that the influence of legal status is dependent on the country of origin-ethnicity of the offender. Concerning perceptions of criminality, a factorial ANOVA did not reveal significant differences within or between the treatments.

Authors

• Madeline Stenger, University of Delaware

• Michael Costelloe, Northern Arizona University