Quick hit: Racial Bias in Presidential Pardons
Tue, February 21, 2012 2 Comments
Quick hit: Racial Bias in Presidential Pardons
Well, would you look at this. Hands up everyone who is not surprised at all.
In analysis of Presidential pardons during the George W. Bush administration, ProPublica has found that whites were four times as likely as non-whites to be granted a pardon. Pardons were granted to 12% of whites, 10% of Hispanics and Asians, and zero percent of Blacks and Native Americans. The disparity remained even when investigators controlled for type of crime.
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About tenderhooligan
Yup. Not surprised. Then again, I wonder if anyone has done a study on the comparative level of public outcry based on the offender’s demographics. (struggled to say that right for some reason!). I know in South Africa, there is more outcry for non-white offenders and in UK, we just love to vilify the immigrants and non-whites too.
In some respects, yes. There is persistent discourse about the amount of non-whites on the criminal justice system’s “books” and a constant stream of people who would like to argue that that is because non-whites commit more crime. That is not the case at all, of course – it’s about how crime is reported, recorded, and then dealt with by the system (to name but a few issues). It is a bias that needs to be investigated properly.