Blacks and Hispanics convicted of felonies are more likely than whites to receive prison sentences for their crimes, and they receive slightly longer sentences if imprisoned. Yet the majority of prior research compares sentencing decisions at a single point in time and does not give explicit attention to whether and how racial and ethnic disparities have changed. Decades of sentencing data from Minnesota, the federal courts, and a sample of large urban counties are used to assess the degree of change in racial and ethnic sentencing disparities since the 1980s. There has been some decline in the magnitude of racial and ethnic disparities, with changes in drug laws aligning with some of the reduction in disparity at the federal level. This trend, along with the pattern of findings from related studies, poses a challenge to prominent theoretical explanations of sentencing disparities, including racial threat theory and the focal concerns perspective. Each of four influential theoretical explanations of racial and ethnic disparities in sentencing includes significant empirical or logical shortcomings. Advancing theoretical understanding of racial and ethnic disparity will require new data that follow cases from the point of arrest through to final disposition and include information about citizenship and victims.

中文翻译：

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判决中的种族和种族差异是否有所减少？

被判犯有重罪的黑人和西班牙裔人比白人更有可能因其罪行而被判入狱，而如果被监禁，他们将被判处更长的刑期。然而，大多数先前的研究都比较了单个时间点上的判决判决，而没有明确关注种族和族裔差异是否以及如何发生变化。来自明尼苏达州，联邦法院和数十个大城市县的数十年量刑数据被用于评估自1980年代以来种族和族裔量刑差距的变化程度。种族和族裔差异的程度有所下降，毒品法律的变化与联邦一级差异的减少相吻合。这种趋势以及相关研究的发现模式，对量刑悬殊的突出理论解释（包括种族威胁理论和关注焦点观点）构成挑战。对量刑中种族和族裔差异的四个有影响力的理论解释中，每一个都有明显的经验或逻辑缺陷。推进对种族和族裔差异的理论理解，将需要新的数据，这些数据应遵循从逮捕到最终处决的案件，并包括有关公民身份和受害者的信息。