Sentencing disparity within the American Judicial system is a problem that exists across the nation. According to Merriam Webster’s dictionary, disparity means the markedly distinct in quality or character. Many times, disparity is used in conjunction with discrimination as if the two words mean the same, but they do not. Disparity will include a difference in treatment or outcome but is not based on an opinion, bias or prejudice. Within the United States there are several types of disparity that exist within sentencing and these inconsistencies can vary from state to state, judge to judge, and from individual from individual.
Disparity within different states, titled interjurisdictional disparity, is one of the differences within sentencing. Although many states have adopted guidelines to utilize during sentencing, there is still a large variance between jurisdictions from state to state. “As a result, the sentences imposed by judges within the same jurisdiction will not
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Their bonds were set at amounts that were 54 percent lower than what men were required to pay.
• Women were 58 percent less likely to be sentenced to prison.
• For defendants who were sentenced to prison, there generally was no gender disparity in the length of the sentence. There were disparities in sentencing for some individual types of crime, however. For example, female defendants convicted of theft received longer prison sentences than male defendants convicted of theft. Women convicted of “other property offenses” – a category of crimes that includes arson, receiving stolen property and breaking and entering — received shorter prison sentences.
• Black female defendants were, in some ways, treated differently than white female defendants. Black women were assigned higher bond amounts and were more likely to be sent to prison than white women. Women of both races were equally likely to be released prior to