The four Visegrad states — Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia (until 1993 Czechoslovakia) and Hungary — form a compact area between Germany and Austria in the west and the states of the former USSR in the east. They are bounded by the Baltic in the north and the Danube river in the south. They are cut by the Sudeten and Carpathian mountain ranges, which divide Poland off from the other states. Poland is an extension of the North European plain and like the latter is drained by rivers that flow from south to north west — the Oder, the Vlatava and the Elbe, the Vistula and the Bug. The Danube is the great exception, flowing from its source eastward, turning through two 90-degree turns to end up in the Black Sea, forming the barrier and often the political frontier between central Europe and the Balkans. Hungary to the east of the Danube is also an open plain. The region is historically and culturally part of western Europe, but its eastern Marches now represents a vital strategic zone between Germany and the core of the European Union to the west and the Russian zone to the east.

Economy and Society

Although growth in the U.S. prison population over the past twenty-five years has been widely discussed, few studies examine changes in inequality in imprisonment. We study penal inequality by estimating lifetime risks of imprisonment for black and white men at different levels of education. Combining administrative, survey, and census data, we estimate that among men born between 1965 and 1969, 3 percent of whites and 20 percent of blacks had served time in prison by their early thirties. The risks of incarceration are highly stratified by education. Among black men born during this period, 30 percent of those without college education and nearly 60 percent of high school dropouts went to prison by 1999. The novel pervasiveness of imprisonment indicates the emergence of incarceration as a new stage in the life course of young low-skill black men.

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Mass Imprisonment and the Life Course: Race and Class Inequality in U.S. Incarceration:

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The growth of incarceration in the United States: exploring causes and consequences

Objectives:Discussions of fairness in criminal justice risk assessments typically lack conceptual precision. Rhetoric too often substitutes for careful analysis. In this article, we seek to clarify...

Fairness in Criminal Justice Risk Assessments: The State of the Art

Issues of selection bias pervade criminological research. Despite their ubiquity, considerable confusion surrounds various approaches for addressing sample selection. The most common approach for dealing with selection bias in criminology remains Heckman’s [(1976) Ann Econ Social Measure 5:475–492] two-step correction. This technique has often been misapplied in criminological research. This paper highlights some common problems with its application, including its use with dichotomous dependent variables, difficulties with calculating the hazard rate, misestimated standard error estimates, and collinearity between the correction term and other regressors in the substantive model of interest. We also discuss the fundamental importance of exclusion restrictions, or theoretically determined variables that affect selection but not the substantive problem of interest. Standard statistical software can readily address some of these common errors, but the real problem with selection bias is substantive, not technical. Any correction for selection bias requires that the researcher understand the source and magnitude of the bias. To illustrate this, we apply a diagnostic technique by Stolzenberg and Relles [(1997) Am Sociol Rev 62:494–507] to help develop intuition about selection bias in the context of criminal sentencing research. Our investigation suggests that while Heckman’s two-step correction can be an appropriate technique for addressing this bias, it is not a magic solution to the problem. Thoughtful consideration is therefore needed before employing this common but overused technique.

https://ccjs.umd.edu/sites/ccjs.umd.edu/files/pubs/HeckmanCorrection.pdf

Is the Magic Still There? The Use of the Heckman Two-Step Correction for Selection Bias in Criminology

Using federal court data collected by the U.S. Sentencing Commission for the years 1993-1996, this study examines racial/ethnic differences-white versus black versus white-Hispanic versus black-Hispanic-in sentencing outcomes and criteria under the federal sentencing guidelines. Regression analyses of incarceration and term-length decisions reveal considerable judicial consistency in the use of sentencing criteria for all defendants; however, important racial/ethnic disparities in sentencing emerge. Consistent with theoretical hypotheses, the authors find that ethnicity has a small to moderate effect on sentencing outcomes that favors white defendants and penalizes Hispanic defendants, black defendants are in an intermediate position. Hispanic drug offenders are most at risk of receiving the harshest penalties, and their harsher treatment is most pronounced in prosecutor-controlled guidelines departure cases. These findings highlight both a classic organizational tension noted by Weber and a fundamental dilemma in policy efforts to structure sentencing processes (formal rationality) while allowing for judicial and prosecutorial discretion (substantive rationality). The findings also broaden our view of the continuing significance of race in American society-as a matter confronting not only blacks but also Hispanics and perhaps other ethnic groups as well

Ethnicity and Sentencing Outcomes in U.S. Federal Courts: Who is Punished More Harshly?

One third of all children are born to unmarried mothers and over one half of children will spend some time in a single-parent family. In fact, single-father families are the fastest growing family form. Using data from the 1995 National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, the authors extend prior research that has investigated the effects of growing up in a two-parent versus single-mother family by examining adolescent delinquency in single-father families, too. This strategy helps us to identify the mechanisms through which living with a single parent increases delinquency, notably, whether the effect is predominantly a function of parental absence (i.e., one versus two parents) or parental gender (i.e., single mother versus single father). The results indicate that adolescents in single-parent families are significantly more delinquent than their counterparts residing with two biological, married parents, although these differences are reduced once the authors account for various family processes....

Family Structure, Family Processes, and Adolescent Delinquency: The Significance of Parental Absence Versus Parental Gender

This study uses data on Pennsylvania sentencing practices to compare the sentence outcomes of white, black, and Hispanic defendants. Besides the overall more lenient treatment of white defendants, our main finding is that Hispanic defendants are the defendant subgroup most at risk to receive the harshest penalty. This pattern is held across all comparisons—i.e., for both the in/out and term-length decisions and for both drug and nondrug cases. These findings are consistent with the “focal concerns” framework on sentencing and with hypotheses drawn from the writings on prejudice and inter group hostility suggesting that the specific social and historical context facing Hispanic Americans will exacerbate perceptions of their cultural dissimilarity and the “threat” they pose.

Ethnicity and judges' sentencing decisions: hispanic-black-white comparisons

Using data from large urban courts for the years 1990–1996 and drawing from the “focal concerns” framework on case-process decision making, we examine the main and interactive effects of gender and race–ethnicity on sentence outcomes. The main focus of the present study is whether the effects of race–ethnicity (and gender) on sentence outcomes are similar or different across gender (and racial–ethnic) groups. Consistent with the findings of prior research, we find that female defendants receive more lenient sentences than male defendants and that black and Hispanic defendants receive less favorable treatment than white defendants. However, these main effects are strongly dependent on whether the sample is partitioned by gender or race–ethnicity. We find that race–ethnicity influences male but not female sentences. Conversely, gender strongly influences sentencing across all racial–ethnic groups. These findings are at odds with the traditional view that leniency in court sanctioning typically by-passes “women of color.” Instead, it appears that black and Hispanic female defendants actually benefit more from their “female” status than would be expected all else equal.

Does Gender Modify the Effects of Race–ethnicity on Criminal Sanctioning? Sentences for Male and Female White, Black, and Hispanic Defendants

The present study uses data on the processing of felony defendants in large urban courts to examine Hispanic, black, and white differences at the pretrial release stage. The major finding is that Hispanic defendants are more likely to be detained than white and black defendants. And, racial/ethnic differences are most pronounced in drug cases. In fact, Hispanic defendants suffer a triple burden at the pretrial release stage as they are the group most likely to be required to pay bail to gain release, the group that receives the highest bail amounts, and the group least able to pay bail. These findings are consistent with a focal concerns perspective of criminal case processing that suggests Hispanics as a newly immigrated group are especially prone to harsher treatment in the criminal case process.

Stephen Demuth

Papers

Ethnicity and Sentencing Outcomes in U.S. Federal Courts: Who is Punished More Harshly?

Family Structure, Family Processes, and Adolescent Delinquency: The Significance of Parental Absence Versus Parental Gender

Ethnicity and judges' sentencing decisions: hispanic-black-white comparisons

Does Gender Modify the Effects of Race–ethnicity on Criminal Sanctioning? Sentences for Male and Female White, Black, and Hispanic Defendants

Racial and ethnic differences in pretrial release decisions and outcomes: a comparison of hispanic, black, and white felony arrestees*