Award Date

1-1-2005

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Criminal Justice

First Committee Member

Randy Shelden

Number of Pages

50

Abstract

Drawing upon a national sample of offenders from the U.S. Sentencing Commission through the ICPSR, the current study examines the extent of racial disparities in federal sentencing of drug offenders. After controlling for demographic characteristics of the defendants results from the analysis indicate that blacks and Hispanics convicted of drug offenses receive more prison sentences than white defendants. Black defendants receive longer prison sentences than whites and Hispanics for the same type of drug offenses. Although Hispanics receive more prison sentences than whites their prisons sentences are significantly shorter than prison sentences for black and white defendants. It is determined that the interaction between race of the defendant and the type of crime affects federal sentencing outcomes for drug offenses.

Keywords

Disparities; Drug; Federal; Offenders; Racial; Sentencing

Controlled Subject

Criminology; Blacks--Study and teaching; Hispanic Americans--Study

File Format

pdf

File Size

1310.72 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

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Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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