A Harvard Law School study found that Black and Hispanic defendants in Massachusetts courtrooms received harsher sentences for drugs and weapons offenses than white defendants convicted of similar charges, the Associated Press reports.
The study, commissioned by the chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, controlled the results to account for the severity of the charges and potential past histories of the defendants, as well as other factors.
“The penalty in incarceration length is largest for drug and weapons charges, offenses that carry longstanding racialized stigmas. We believe that this evidence is consistent with racially disparate initial charging practices leading to weaker initial positions in the plea bargaining process for Black defendants, which then translate into longer incarceration sentences for similar offenses,” the researchers wrote.
The study found that Black and Latino defendants were initially charged with higher degrees of crimes for actions of similar seriousness, meaning that even accounting for plea bargains and sentence reductions, white defendants received shorter sentences.
In 2014, the Massachusetts Sentencing Commission found that people of color were incarcerated at a rate eight times higher than white defendants. Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Ralph Gants asked Harvard Law to investigate why that was happening.