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Crack as Proxy: Aggressive Federal Drug Prosecutions and the Production of Black–White Racial Inequality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Mona Lynch  and
Marisa Omori
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Abstract

In this article, we empirically examine jurisdictional variations in federal crack prosecutions to measure whether aggressive crack prosecutorial practices are associated with racial inequality in federal caseload characteristics and outcomes. Building on theories that address the production of inequality in institutional settings, we hypothesize that U.S. Attorneys’ offices that are more proactive in charging defendants with crack, relative to other kinds of drugs, and relative to case strength and seriousness, will demonstrate higher rates of black–white racial inequality in case outcomes across the entire criminal caseload. Consistent with theories of institutional racism, our findings demonstrate that aggressive crack prosecutions at the district level are a strong predictor of black–white inequality in conviction rates across the entire criminal caseload, and a much more modest predictor of inequality in final sentence outcomes. We conclude by discussing the importance of organizational-level empirical analyses for more effectively uncovering the conditions under which inequality can and does flourish in legal settings, and suggest possible future lines of inquiry along these lines.

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Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 52 , Issue 3 , September 2018 , pp. 773 - 809
Copyright
© 2018 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

We would like to thank Anjuli Verma, the LSR editors, and the anonymous reviewers for their thoughts, suggestions and advice. This project was supported by Grant No. 2010-IJ-CX-0010 awarded by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice and by Grant No. 1251700, awarded by the National Science Foundation to the first author. Points of view in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice or the National Science Foundation.

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