We analyze the disparate effects of a recent California sentencing reform on the arrest, booking, and incarceration rates experienced by California residents from different racial and ethnic groups. In November 2014, California voters passed state Proposition 47 that redefined a series of felony and “wobbler” offenses (offenses that can be charged as either a felony or misdemeanor) as straight misdemeanors, causing an immediate 15% decline in total drug arrests, an approximate 20% decline in total property crime arrests, and shifts in the composition of arrests away from felonies towards misdemeanors. Using microdata on the universe of arrests in the state in conjunction with demographic data from the American Community Survey, we document a substantial narrowing in interracial differences in overall arrest rates and arrest rates by offense type, with very large declines in the interracial arrest rate gaps for felony drug offenses. We see declines in bookings rates for all groups (conditional on being arrested), though we find a larger decrease for white arrestees. This relatively greater decline for white arrests is largely explained by differences in the distribution of arrests across recorded offenses. Despite the widening of racial gaps in the conditional booking rate, we observe substantial declines in overall booked arrests that are larger for African Americans and Hispanics relative to Whites and Asians. For some offenses (felony drug offenses), interracial disparities in jail booking rates narrow by nearly half. Finally, we use data from the American Community Survey to analyze changes in the proportion incarcerated on any given day and how these changes vary by race and ethnicity. For these results, we present trends for the time period spanning the larger set of policy reforms that have been implemented in the state since 2011. We observe sizable declines in the overall incarceration rate for African Americans, with the largest declines observed for African American males. The one quarter decline in total correctional populations in the state coincided with sizable narrowing in interracial differences in incarceration rates.

中文翻译：

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量刑改革对参与刑事司法系统的种族和族裔差距的影响：以加利福尼亚州的命题为例47

我们分析了加利福尼亚州最近的量刑改革对不同种族和族裔的加利福尼亚居民所遭受的逮捕，预订和监禁率的不同影响。2014年11月，加利福尼亚州的选民通过了第47号州提案，该提案将一系列重罪和“摇摆不定”罪行（可被指控为重罪或轻罪的罪行）重新定义为轻罪，直接导致总毒品逮捕的15％下降，财产犯罪的逮捕总数下降了约20％，逮捕的构成也从重罪转向轻罪。结合该州逮捕事件的微观数据和美国社区调查的人口统计数据，我们发现总体逮捕率和犯罪类型的逮捕率在种族差异上有明显的缩小，重罪毒品犯罪的跨种族逮捕率差距大幅下降。尽管我们发现白人被捕者的下降幅度更大，但我们看到所有群体的预订率都有所下降（以被捕为条件）。白人逮捕的下降幅度相对较大，这在很大程度上是由于记录的犯罪中逮捕的分布不同而造成的。尽管有条件预订率的种族差距有所扩大，但我们观察到总体预订的逮捕人数大幅下降，与白人和亚洲人相比，非洲裔美国人和西班牙裔美国人的逮捕人数更大。对于某些犯罪（重罪毒品犯罪），监狱预订率的种族差异缩小了近一半。最后，我们使用来自美国社区调查的数据来分析任何一天被监禁的比例的变化，以及这些变化如何随种族和种族而变化。对于这些结果，我们展示了自2011年以来该州实施的一系列较大范围的政策改革的趋势。我们观察到非洲裔美国人的整体监禁率大幅下降，其中非洲裔美国男性的下降幅度最大。 。该州惩教总人数下降了四分之一，与监禁率的种族差异大幅缩小相吻合。