Examining Policy Impacts on Racial Disparities in Federal Sentencing Across Stages and Groups and over Time, [United States], 1998-2021 (ICPSR 38647)
In this secondary analysis, the research team used publicly available federal sentencing data from the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) to measure racial disparities for multiple race groups and stages of sentencing across time (fiscal years 1999-2021). They sought to answer the following research questions:
- Do racial disparities vary across 3 stages of federal sentencing and over time? If so, how?
- During which years do the measured racial disparities have a statistically significant decrease?
- Which policies likely impacted these decreases the most? What are the commonalities between them?
To answer the research questions, the research team measured racial disparities between matched cases across three stages of federal sentencing, represented by two elements each; identified at which points in time the disparities changed significantly using time series plots and structured break analyses; and used this information to systematically review federal policies to identify which might have contributed to significant decreases in racial disparities.
This collection contains 1 analytic dataset (n = 1,281,732) containing 27 key variables for all fiscal years and the code/syntax used to complete the secondary analysis:
- 5 files to compile and clean the original data and produce matched datasets (3 R, 1 SAS, 1 Stata)
- 6 files to analyze sentences by race (all R)
- 4 files to analyze sentences by federal sentencing guideline (all R)
- 11 files to analyze sentences by circuit court (all R)
Please refer to the Data Sources metadata field and accompanying documentation for details on obtaining the original data.