FOCAL CONCERNS THEORY AS CONCEPTUAL TOOL FOR STUDYING INTERSECTIONALITY IN SENTENCING DISPARITIES: Focus on Gender and Race Along With Age

This chapter aims to clarify the notion of intersectionality and the sorts of questions it raises about the effects of gender and race on sentencing. It elucidates the focal concerns of sentencing as a conceptual framework for studying intersectionality, with particular focus on how the framework helps to theorize and guide research about the intersection of gender, race, and age effects on the sentencing of criminal defendants. The chapter illustrates the advantages of intersectionality by presenting findings of sentencing practices in Pennsylvania. These findings clarify that defendants’ gender and race do not simply influence sentence outcomes independently but intersect with each other and with defendants’ age and therefore these forms of stratification or social differentiation need to be studied in relation to each other. The chapter outlines some directions for advancing research on the application of intersectional approaches to the study of sentencing.