Notable “Racial Injustice Report” released by Philadelphia DA office on Juneteenth

As reported in this local article, headlined “New report finds evidence of racial disparity in Philadelphia police stops and sentencing,” the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office released a significant new report on racial disparities in the city’s justice system. Here is a partial summary from the press piece:

Black Philadelphians continue to be overrepresented in arrests and criminal charges compared to the broader population. That’s one of the key findings in the District Attorney’s Racial Injustice Report issued Monday. Despite increased focus on that disparity in recent years, the DA’s report finds the gap in treatment for Black residents has worsened as a result of federal, state, and local laws and policies.

To produce the report, the District Attorney’s Transparency Analytics Lab “analyzes data and outcomes that are only accessible to criminal legal system partners in order to provide the public with a transparent accounting of how systemic racism and economic inequality continue to present in — and are compounded by — policing, incarceration, and the criminal courts.”

The report found that between 2015 and 2022, Black defendants were charged at a disproportionately higher rate in seven out of the eight most common criminal categories. It also found that Black and Latino residents convicted of aggravated assault or burglary are “more likely to be sentenced to incarceration than white individuals convicted of the same crime.”

The full 68-page report is available at this link. Here is a portion of the report’s discussion of sentencing disparities:

Disparities in sentencing are more pronounced than at any other stage of the criminal legal system.  Black people represent 65% of people sentenced to incarceration and 71% of people sentenced to two or more years, despite representing fewer than 60% of those convicted.  Notably, the disproportionalities in incarceration rates are larger than those at both stops and arrests.

In addition to representing a greater proportion, Black defendants also see a higher absolute number of carceral sentences.  As seen in the figure below, Black defendants receive the longest sentences on average, while white defendants receive the shortest.  Sentence lengths for AAPI and Latinx individuals’ range between the two. The seriousness and circumstances of a convicted offense has the greatest impact on sentence length, though prior record can play a role.

Much of the difference in sentence lengths is driven by the seriousness of the convicted crime. However, there are persistent racial disparities when looking at individual offense categories.  Black defendants convicted of burglary, were more likely to receive carceral sentences than white and Latinx defendants, even when accounting for prior convictions and illegal firearm charges.  Latinx defendants convicted of PWID charges are also incarcerated at a higher rate, even when they have no serious prior convictions or illegal firearms charges.