Abstract
Sentencing disparity research has generally focused on the Black-white binary or treats Latina/o/x/s as a monolithic group. Less attention has been paid to the ways that diverse racial identities among Latina/o/x/s may correlate with sentence severity. We integrate insights from Latinx studies to examine sentence length disparities in Florida from 2015 to 2017, with a particular interest in comparing the unique effects of Latinidad across varying racial identities. Multiple regression modeling with weighted effect coding is employed to assess prison sentence lengths for 73983 individuals using data from the National Corrections Reporting Program (NCRP). The results demonstrate the need to treat Latina/o/x system-involved individuals as diverse, to integrate insights from Latinx studies in theorizing on related topics, and to identify innovative approaches for accurately capturing these data. The reliance on administrative data limits researchers’ ability to adequately study ethnoracial sentencing disparities.
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Notes
We use the term “Latina/o/x” throughout this study to engage with the expansiveness and inclusivity of this awkward linguistic signifier. Given our study’s arguments regarding a false monolithic conception of Latinx identities, our use of this term intentionally invokes its challenging of reductive binaries and its attempt to recognize the intersecting identities of the subjects it serves to identify. In addition to accounting for gender and viewing the “x” as a disruption of gender binaries, we echo Ed Morales’s argument in his 2018 book, Latinx, to also emphasize that the “x” may serve to counter and destabilize discourses on race, specifically the persisting reliance in the U.S. on a Black-white binary. For critical discussion on the use of “Latinx,” see the 2017 special issue of Cultural Dynamics, “Theorizing LatinX,” which includes essays by Claudia Milian, Antonio Viego, Patricia Engel, and other authors and theorists of Latinx studies.
Though the roots of “colorism” as a theoretical concept are situated in social scientific research rather than in Latinx studies as a discrete field of inquiry, we find its application here fruitful for arguing against a conception of Latina/o/x/s as a monolith. Perhaps due to the “Latina/o/x” signifier’s complex use as an ethnic category that is also racialized, colorism does not appear to be prevalent within Latinx studies scholarship. We find, however, that the application of “colorism” to Latinx identities is increasing among think tanks, news, cultural commentary, and popular media (e.g., the Pew Research Center, The New York Times, Latino Rebels, Mitú). Therefore, we argue that “colorism” presents a productive point of dialogue between social scientific research and contemporary cultural commentary on Latina/o/x/s in the United States.
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Durante, K.A., Trocchio, S. & Martínez, C. Doomed by the Data? Latina/o/x Racialization and Sentencing Outcomes in Florida. Crit Crim (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-024-09766-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-024-09766-4