Judge Demographics and Their Impact on Sentencing of Drug Crimes

• In Event: Drug Charging and Sentencing

Abstract

As drug use has increased throughout Pennsylvania, so has the number of drug cases going through the criminal justice system. In this study, we aim to address the impact of judge characteristics on sentencing outcomes for drug offenders. We hypothesize that minority judges and female judges will sentence drug offenders to less severe punishments and that judges from more rural counties will sentence drug offenders more severely. We use the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing data from 2014-2019 to evaluate the relationship between a judge’s sex and race and sentence severity. Race/ethnicity was assessed as White, Non-White/minority for judges, and White, Black and Other for offenders. We separate drug offenses into two categories: possession and dealing. We use multi-level models of regression. Logistic regression analyzes the likelihood drug offenders are sentenced to incarceration. Then we use OLS regression to examine how many months offenders were sentenced to incarceration for. These findings help to establish the idea that judge characteristics impact their discretion and decision-making when sentencing drug offenders and suggest a need for more comprehensive training on inherent biases for judges.

Authors

• Sarah Henry Davis, Pennsylvania State University

• Abenaa Jones, Pennsylvania State University

• Megan Kurlychek, Pennsylvania State University