TY - JOUR
T1 - Immigrant threat and Latino/a disadvantage
T2 - disentangling the impact of immigration attitudes on ethnic sentencing disparities
AU - Holland, Melanie M.
AU - Stringer, Richard J.
N1 - Funding Information:
Richard J. Stringer, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of Criminal Justice. His research interests include drug and alcohol policy, courts and sentencing, policing, and advanced quantitative methods. His prior research has been funded by the US Department of Justice and has appeared in outlets such as the Journal of Drug Issues, Criminal Justice Policy Review, and the Journal of Crime and Justice.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018, © 2018 Midwestern Criminal Justice Association.
PY - 2019/3/15
Y1 - 2019/3/15
N2 - The criminal justice system has increasingly been relied upon to address immigration apprehension, resulting in concerns that this institution will be abused in an effort to indirectly address this perceived social problem. The consequences of such an approach will likely extend to Latino/a populations as a result of rhetoric linking ethnicity, immigration, and crime. Despite popular theoretical frameworks suggesting that disadvantage will vary according to the size of the population and the extent of perceived threats toward this minority, many neglect attitudinal measures or fail to measure actual criminological outcomes. This project addresses this oversight by exploring potential mediating effects of attitudes on the relationship between population measures and ethnic sentencing disparities. After fitting multilevel models nesting cases within counties and states, the results indicate that there is significant variation across all levels. While greater disparities in Latino/a sentencing were found in counties with greater Latino/a populations, this relationship was nonlinear. Additionally, state level measures of immigrant threat attitudes appear to be stronger predictors of Latino/a sentencing disparities. These contextual effects are more influential than offender level ethnicity, supporting threat hypotheses and suggesting that measurement of this concept should not be limited to offender ethnicity and population characteristics alone.
AB - The criminal justice system has increasingly been relied upon to address immigration apprehension, resulting in concerns that this institution will be abused in an effort to indirectly address this perceived social problem. The consequences of such an approach will likely extend to Latino/a populations as a result of rhetoric linking ethnicity, immigration, and crime. Despite popular theoretical frameworks suggesting that disadvantage will vary according to the size of the population and the extent of perceived threats toward this minority, many neglect attitudinal measures or fail to measure actual criminological outcomes. This project addresses this oversight by exploring potential mediating effects of attitudes on the relationship between population measures and ethnic sentencing disparities. After fitting multilevel models nesting cases within counties and states, the results indicate that there is significant variation across all levels. While greater disparities in Latino/a sentencing were found in counties with greater Latino/a populations, this relationship was nonlinear. Additionally, state level measures of immigrant threat attitudes appear to be stronger predictors of Latino/a sentencing disparities. These contextual effects are more influential than offender level ethnicity, supporting threat hypotheses and suggesting that measurement of this concept should not be limited to offender ethnicity and population characteristics alone.
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U2 - 10.1080/0735648X.2018.1510338
DO - 10.1080/0735648X.2018.1510338
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85052291947
SN - 0735-648X
VL - 42
SP - 140
EP - 160
JO - Journal of Crime and Justice
JF - Journal of Crime and Justice
IS - 2
ER -