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Report: Black Men Get 20 Percent Longer Prison Sentences
A relatively new report by the U.S. Sentencing Commission has put hard, cold numbers to the long-held suspicion, belief and now objective fact that African-American men are routinely issued demonstrably longer jail and prison sentences than white men for the exact same crimes.
According to the report, black men found guilty between December 2007 and September 2011 received sentences that were at least 19.5 percent longer than white men found guilty for the same or similar crimes.
Assistant law professor Lahny Rose Silva of Indiana University School of Law says that most objective observers agree with the Commission’s finding, but that it is simply impossible to actually, definitively, prove racial bias in sentencing on the part of judges.
“How do you prove racial bias without an individual coming out and blatantly saying ‘I’m using race as a factor in sentencing?” Silva asks. “You just don’t do it.”
Silva further stated that it is an obvious and clear historical fact that black men have largely received longer…
