You are right that you can't simply tell whether any particular case was a racist outcome. You're wrong about not being able to gain information from larger samples though.
Rather than simply counting the number of people in prison, you might take everyone who has been charged with a particular crime, and compare their outcomes. With a large enough sample size, you should be able to determine average conviction rates, sentence lengths, etc with confidence that it isn't being affected by outliers (i.e. judge or jury being unfairly lenient or harsh).
Now split your sample based on some variable such as race, gender, age, etc. Assuming there are enough samples in each group, you should be able to calculate average conviction rates, sentence lengths, etc again with similar confidence. If the averages for each group are the same, then the variable has no effect on outcomes. If it is different, then you can use that variable to predict future outcomes.
Note that this just tells you _what_ is happening: it doesn't tell you _why_. That's a harder question to answer, and one where people might disagree. But it is a lot harder to claim that a bias doesn't exist when evidence to the contrary is available.
reply
share
[deleted]
6 years ago
The problem is they look at the length of sentence for particular crimes, what they don't do is look at the rap sheet of the person convicted. I know we went over some of these stupid studies in law school and the problem was that the people doing the studies were doing them to support an agenda, whenever that happens you stop finding out truths and start finding out what someone wants to find. People that look at the studies have shown that the sample groups are flawed. Would anyone expect a first time offender to get as long of a sentence as a repeat offender? Of course not, but the fact is the typical black in prison isn't a first time offender they are normally repeat offenders. Society didn't force them to go out and do what they clearly knew was wrong a second, third or fourth time, that was a choice that they made.
reply
share