9321852 SPOHN The issue of whether racial discrimination occurs in criminal sentencing has not yet been resolved. Some studies have found that blacks are sentenced more harshly than whites, but others have found either that there are no differences or that blacks are sentenced more leniently than whites. Critics of this research have suggested that these inconsistent findings reflect an overly simplistic view of the relationship between race and sentencing. They have called for research designed to delineate more precisely the conditions under which defendants' race influences judges' sentencing decisions. The proposed research responds to this call for substantive and methodological improvements in research on race and sentencing. The PIs will conduct a multi-site study that (1) probes for indirect as well as direct racial effects; (2) tests for interactions between defendants' race, legal and extralegal variables, and sentencing severity; (3) examines decisions made prior to sentencing for evidence of racial bias; and (4) employs qualitative as well as quantitative techniques. They will collect detailed data on defendant, victim and case characteristics for a random sample of defendants convicted of felonies in Cook County (Chicago) Circuit Court, Harris County (Houston) District Court, and Douglas County (Omaha) District Court. In addition, interviews will be conducted with criminal justice officials in each jurisdiction. ***
