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Assessing Sentencing Disparities among American Indians within the Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Federal Circuit Courts

ABSTRACT In a fair and equitable criminal justice system, one’s race should not influence their sentencing outcomes. Research studies conducted in the United States often report evidence that ethnic minorities are at an increased risk for receiving more punitive punishments at the time of their sentencing. The existing scholarship, however, has largely focused on assessing differences between Black and Hispanic defendants in relation to White defendants. There has been far less academic exploration of potential sentencing disparities among other less populated ethnic groups, including American Indians. To address this gap in knowledge, we use data collected from the United States Sentencing Commission to test whether American Indians receive different sentencing outcomes when compared to other racial groups. Our study findings indicate that American Indian defendants are more likely to be sentenced to prison than White, Black, and Hispanic defendants, but among those incarcerated, American Indians received similar sentence lengths to Whites.