Date of Award
12-8-2023
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Criminal Justice
First Advisor
Molly Smith
Abstract
Past research has found that there are often disparities in sentencing outcomes due to extralegal factors such as race, gender, age, socioeconomic status, education level, and geographic location. The most prominent and widely studied of these factors, however, is race. Specifically, studies have shown that minority offenders (e.g., African Americans) were more likely to receive a lengthier sentence than their White peers. The purpose of this thesis is thus to examine if there is racial bias in sentences levied to violent offenders in Arkansas. This is be done by analyzing sentencing data from the Arkansas Office of the Courts between the years of 2010 and 2015 for offenders who were sentenced for murder, rape, first-degree battery, aggravated robbery, and aggravated assault. Results determined that Non-White offenders received significantly shorter sentences for each of the crimes examined except murder. The implications of these findings for future research and policy are discussed. KEY WORDS: sentencing disparities, race, racial disparities in sentencing, Arkansas
Recommended Citation
Schaeffer, Viola, "An Assessment of Sentencing Disparities by Race in the State of Arkansas" (2023). Theses and Dissertations. 1169.
https://research.ualr.edu/etd/1169
