The Recidivist Sentencing Discount - a Defense
Working Paper (Draft Available On Request)
Abstract:
Every sentencing regime in the U.S. imposes harsher penalties for offenders with prior convictions than those found guilty of a first offense. But neither forward-looking considerations of deterrence and incapacitation, nor backward-looking considerations about an offender’s blameworthiness, can justify this. The collateral consequences of past criminal convictions incentivize people to commit more crime in the future. So we normally have less evidence of ill will when people with prior conviction re-offend, than when people with no criminal record are found guilty of similar crimes for the first time. As such, judges and sentencing commissions have reason in principle to treat prior convictions as a presumptive mitigating factor at sentencing — a Recidivist Sentencing Discount.
Working Paper (Draft Available On Request)
Abstract:
Every sentencing regime in the U.S. imposes harsher penalties for offenders with prior convictions than those found guilty of a first offense. But neither forward-looking considerations of deterrence and incapacitation, nor backward-looking considerations about an offender’s blameworthiness, can justify this. The collateral consequences of past criminal convictions incentivize people to commit more crime in the future. So we normally have less evidence of ill will when people with prior conviction re-offend, than when people with no criminal record are found guilty of similar crimes for the first time. As such, judges and sentencing commissions have reason in principle to treat prior convictions as a presumptive mitigating factor at sentencing — a Recidivist Sentencing Discount.
Latinos and the Principles of Racial Demography
__ Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race __ (forthcoming)
Abstract:
U.S. federal agencies should treat Hispanics as a racial group in demographic data collection, rather than an ethnic or pan-ethnic group, as they do currently. Racial demographic data should primarily aim to capture how members of society perceive one another – rather than how they prefer to identify themselves, or their continental ancestry. To capture racial perceptions of Hispanics, government surveys need to balance three subsidiary criteria: the promotion of self-reported racial identifications that are useful as a proxy for the perceptions of others; the ability to measure intra-group differences in how Hispanics are racially perceived; and the extent to which Hispanics are collectively perceived as a race. A survey format that treated Hispanics as a racial group would likely be more amenable to these goals than the current format, but this paper identifies some areas where further empirical research is needed in order to be sure.
__ Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race __ (forthcoming)
Abstract:
U.S. federal agencies should treat Hispanics as a racial group in demographic data collection, rather than an ethnic or pan-ethnic group, as they do currently. Racial demographic data should primarily aim to capture how members of society perceive one another – rather than how they prefer to identify themselves, or their continental ancestry. To capture racial perceptions of Hispanics, government surveys need to balance three subsidiary criteria: the promotion of self-reported racial identifications that are useful as a proxy for the perceptions of others; the ability to measure intra-group differences in how Hispanics are racially perceived; and the extent to which Hispanics are collectively perceived as a race. A survey format that treated Hispanics as a racial group would likely be more amenable to these goals than the current format, but this paper identifies some areas where further empirical research is needed in order to be sure.
Inequality, Incentives, Criminality, and Blame
22 Legal Theory 153 (2016)
Abstract:
The disadvantaged have incentives to commit crime, and to develop criminogenic dispositions, that limit the extent to which their co-citizens can blame them for breaking the law. This is true regardless of whether the causes of criminality are mainly “structural” or “cultural.” We need not assume that the society as a whole is unjust in order to accept this conclusion. And doing so would neither stigmatize nor otherwise disrespect the disadvantaged.
22 Legal Theory 153 (2016)
Abstract:
The disadvantaged have incentives to commit crime, and to develop criminogenic dispositions, that limit the extent to which their co-citizens can blame them for breaking the law. This is true regardless of whether the causes of criminality are mainly “structural” or “cultural.” We need not assume that the society as a whole is unjust in order to accept this conclusion. And doing so would neither stigmatize nor otherwise disrespect the disadvantaged.
Oppositional Culture and Educational Opportunity
10 Theory and Research in Education 154 (2012)
Abstract:
The most common lay explanation for the racial gap in educational achievement in the US is the ‘oppositional culture hypothesis’, which holds that Black students tend to undervalue education and stigmatize their high-achieving peers, accusing them of ‘acting White’. Many believe that, insofar as this hypothesis is true, Black underachievement is unproblematic from the perspective of justice, because Black students are simply not taking the fair opportunities presented to them. This article offers a systematic critique of the normative aspects of this view and some conceptual clarifications regarding the nature of opportunity.
10 Theory and Research in Education 154 (2012)
Abstract:
The most common lay explanation for the racial gap in educational achievement in the US is the ‘oppositional culture hypothesis’, which holds that Black students tend to undervalue education and stigmatize their high-achieving peers, accusing them of ‘acting White’. Many believe that, insofar as this hypothesis is true, Black underachievement is unproblematic from the perspective of justice, because Black students are simply not taking the fair opportunities presented to them. This article offers a systematic critique of the normative aspects of this view and some conceptual clarifications regarding the nature of opportunity.