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Racial Bias in the Decision to Grant Parole

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Leo Carroll  and
Margaret E. Mondrick
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Abstract

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Research concerning racial discrimination within the criminal justice system has focused largely upon the police and the courts. There is reason to believe, however, that differential treatment may be more common in less visible proceedings. This research addresses that possibility through an examination of the cases of 243 prisoners who appeared before a parole board from October 1, 1970, through September 30, 1971. There is no evidence of direct racial discrimination. There is evidence, however, that the board differentiated between black and white prisoners in selecting and weighting information when deciding parole. Compared to white prisoners, black prisoners had an additional criterion to meet in order to be paroled—participation in institutional treatment programs. The imposition of this additional criterion indirectly resulted in racial inequities. Black parolees who were treatment participants served a significantly longer portion of their sentence than did white treatment participants. The few black prisoners who were paroled without participating in treatment served a shorter proportion of their sentence than other prisoners. These few black prisoners were older, more likely to be property offenders and had slightly more prior convictions than black treatment participants. These findings are interpreted as indicating a bias against racial militancy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , Fall 1976 , pp. 93 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © 1977 The Law and Society Association

Footnotes

*

This paper is a revision of one read at the Annual Meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society, Boston, March, 1976. The authors would like to express their appreciation to Michael Bassis and Richard Pollnac for their technical assistance and helpful critiques and to John Hagan for his review of an earlier draft.

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