The racialized packaging of punishment: An instrumental variables approach to incarceration, probation, and monetary sanctions

Abstract

Research on racial disparities in the criminal legal system generally examines isolated sentencing decisions, rather than the “package” of punishment that defendants experience. Using Minnesota court administrative data from 2004 to 2017, we specify multivariate and instrumental variables models to simultaneously estimate the outcomes of three elements of racialized punishment: incarceration, probation, and monetary sanctions. We instrument incarceration using jail capacity, which accounts for confounding and the simultaneity of incarceration and other punishment forms. Our results show racial patterning in the “mix” of punishment for similarly situated defendants. Before accounting for this mix, Black, Hispanic, and Native American defendants appear to receive less probation and lower monetary sanctions, but longer incarceration than White defendants. After accounting for instrumented incarceration, monetary sanctions and probation are racialized beyond incarceration in complex ways: Black, Hispanic, and Native American defendants receive lower monetary sanctions as compared to White defendants, and probation for Black and Native American defendants is higher after adjustment. The contours of this racialized package depend critically upon whether the state guidelines recommend a prison sentence. These results show that punishment can be modeled as experienced—as a constitutive package of costs, surveillance, and confinement constrained by structural features of state sentencing guidelines.