FAQ for the Every State Project
Question 1: What is the goal of this project?
Answer: One of the most common claims made in American politics when racism is brought up is how Black people get longer sentences for the same crime as White people. Many believe that the criminal justice system is racially biased; with judges, prosecutors, and juries just being the tip of the iceberg. The disparities that exist in sentencing are often used as proof of this. So, the goal of this project was to find the best data there is on every state, with the goal of looking all around the country at varying regions and circumstances, to see the validity of these perceptions and beliefs.
Question 2: Why was some data chosen over other data? What qualifies an analysis as being better than another?
Answer: Well, there are many things that go into whether one piece of research is better evidence than another, given they are on the same subject. Here are some examples which might make it easier to understand:
For Oklahoma, the study that was originally chosen to be used was solid, but only covered females. While other states were being worked on, an Oklahoma study was found that had both males and females, so that ended up replacing the original one.
Another example was Pennsylvania, where the original study that was being used didn’t cover data on the entire state, but just select counties. When one was found that used data on the entire state, that was chosen instead for the release of the article.
As stated at the very end of the article, a state’s study will be updated if and when better research is discovered, and we are open to discussing with anyone who thinks that they found something better than what we cite whether it should be used in its place or not.
Question 3: Why is there just one study used for each state? Why not add every single study you found?
Answer: The quick answer is that not all data is the same. If you are trying to figure out if sentencing in Ohio is racially biased, you’d look at data that is on the entire state over data that is only on a few counties. It doesn’t make the latter data useless, but it just isn’t as helpful at answering the question, which in essence is the question that we are attempting to answer with each study for each state. Overall, quality matters a lot more than quantity with research.
Additionally, it makes an article a lot more digestible for the average person when you don’t smother them with a ton of numbers and statistics, especially since they may not be familiar at all with any of it. It’d be a little excessive to cite every study that exists on every state, especially for the ones that a large portion of the research covers like New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, California, and Texas.
Question 4: Why do some of the states only look at a single county or city?
Answer: For states that use data that doesn’t cover the state as a whole, it’s because data couldn’t be found that was more representative. If we could find something better, we would have used it instead, but many states are honestly forgotten about by researchers…which leads to the next question.
Question 5: Why are some states not included?
Answer: It pains us to say that we failed to find research on the states left out of the article. We really hope to find at least something that can be added, even if it doesn’t fully match the direction of the rest of it. Specifically, Wyoming and Maine seemed to be a lost cause—although we considered West Virginia a lost cause until it wasn’t, and data was indeed found on the state! So, we have hope to be able to cover every single one someday.
Question 6: Why do some states look at different groups than the others?
Answer: We used the best data that we could find for the state. This means that if data couldn’t be found that looked at every group, we chose whatever existed. For North Dakota, and South Dakota, the only sentencing analyses that seemed to exist compared Whites with Native Americans.
Question 7: Why do so many of the studies only look at Black people?
Answer: More likely than not, this topic is brought up in relation to Black people, and the studies conducted are disproportionately focused on them over other minorities. For those reasons, they ended up being the center of attention.
Question 8: Why does so much research show racial disparities in sentencing?
Answer: There are so many reasons for this, mainly relating to major flaws in the field of sentencing research. One problem is that they often control for some stuff, and then find racial gaps, which they then blame on discrimination. So often, it seems as though when enough variables are accounted for, the disparities dissipate.
Additionally, you will find some areas of the country that probably do sentence any given Non-White group harsher than Whites. But, you can also find areas that probably do sentence Whites harsher than that same non-White group as well. The real question is whether one bias overpowers the other in significance, or if they cancel each other out.
Another important question is if these areas even have an effect on the aggregate. A single judge in a low-population place in Kentucky could be prejudiced and give Native Americans longer sentences than Whites for no reason other than their own biases. Would that have any effect on the average of Kentucky as a whole? Is there another area in Kentucky where a judge shows leniency to Whites?
Another major issue is how researchers control for certain things. Often, they’ll ‘control for criminal history’, but all this means is that they turned it into a dichotomy of ‘has a criminal history’ and ‘doesn’t have a criminal history’. It should be obvious why this is flawed, considering there are levels to criminal history. Someone with a single criminal charge in their history and a serial offender are not the same, and should not be treated as such by the courts.
Question 9: Why do some of the studies used look at the death penalty, not sentence length?
Answer: Sentence length was the focus, so whenever possible, data on that was used. But, for states where no sentence length analyses could be found, studies on the death penalty seemed close enough to be used until something more precise was found. The death penalty is, in a way, just sentence length in the most extreme cases for the most heinous crimes.
Question 10: I noticed that some of the studies analyze other states or other sentencing outcomes as well! Why are they left out of the article?
Answer: Each study is meant to focus on a single state, to come to accurate conclusions on that state alone. Each study was chosen to be the face of the state due to it being the best data that exists on the state that it is representing. The study used for Louisana covers other states too, but it isn’t used for the other states due to the fact that they already have solid data representing them, that is of even higher quality.
For the other sentencing outcomes, that is due to the fact that this article focuses solely on sentence length. It would be far too much to attempt to cover every step of the lengthy process that offenders go through within the justice system. If it is wanted by people, a Part 2 to this project could be done on another sentencing outcome, like the probability of being sentenced to prison or jail, or of being convicted. Probably not though, due to the fact that people generally care a lot about differences in sentences, and not at all about the rest.
Question 11: You don’t cover my state!
Answer: We would love to cover your state, and would if it was possible. We’d appreciate all help to look for data on the states we are missing to make our compilation more extensive and representative. If you live in New Hampshire and are interested in if your state’s racial disparities in sentencing can be explained by bias or prejudice, feel free to dig for any data on it yourself! We’d like to think that a study on every state exists, but it is possible that some states just have never been looked at in regard to this subject of research.
Question 12: What states are missing?
Answer: Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, West Virginia, Wyoming, and Hawaii; have no study at all.
Tennessee has a death penalty study in place of a sentence length study.