| Disparities in sentence lengths exist for African Americans who often receive longer sentences than Caucasians. This study examined the predictive ability of the legal variable (crime) and extra-legal variables (race, age, income, education, and community of residence) on lengths of sentences received by prisoners in Alabama. Presentence investigation reports were used to collect data from 297 randomly selected files from a population of 1237 inmates at one Alabama prison. Multiple linear regression analysis provided results significant at a .05 level that indicated sentence lengths were based solely on the crime committed. Race was expected to be a strong predictor of sentence length but such was not supported by the results as crime was the most significant predictor of all the variables. Race, however seemed to be a factor when the raw data was examined which indicated a higher percentage of African Americans were incarcerated in comparison to Caucasians. Additional research is needed to further address the problem of disparities in sentence lengths and the racial composition of the prison population as the findings from this study suggest that other factors are responsible for the differences. |
