Racial Disparity in Criminal Justice Processing: Updating the Blumstein Approach in New York State

• In Event: Race, Ethnicity, and Sex Disparities at Different Stages of Criminal Justice Processing

Abstract

This paper adds to literature on racial disparity in sentencing to prison with an updated version of Blumstein’s (1982) approach, using 20 years of criminal case processing data from New York State. Rather than using aggregate data, we use criminal rapsheet data that starts at arrest and includes dispositions. Rapsheets facilitate the addition of criminal history as an improvement on Blumstein’s original work, as that this might help explain any differential treatment by the criminal justice system we find. Our data also allows us to provide estimates for each of four regions in NY State to account for localized differences. We find that a significant amount of the racial disparity in prisons may be explained by arrest and criminal history; that the proportion which we can explain decreases over time from 1990 to 2010; and finally that regional differences can easily be masked by state aggregation. We conclude with an exploration of how the Blumstein method relates to the standard criminological approach.

Authors

• André Kiesel, University at Albany, SUNY

• Jaeok Kim, University at Albany, SUNY

• Shawn Bushway, University at Albany, SUNY