Study: Lighter-Skinned Black Women Get Lighter Prison Sentences

From the blog “Layers of Blackness“:

‘The Impact of Light Skin on Prison Time for Black Female Offenders’ is the first of its kind to examine the relationship between skin tone and sentencing among African American women. It looked at 12,158 women imprisoned in the southern state of North Carolina between 1995 and 2009.

In several US states including Mississippi, Montana and South Carolina it is common practice for correctional officers to assess the skin tone of prisoners when they are being admitted to jail. The process is fairly crude with simple notations like ‘dark skin’ ‘medium skin’ ‘light skin’ being recorded. This is supposed to enable escapees to be more easily identified.

The author’s findings revealed that on average, black female inmates with lighter complexions received 12 per cent less jail time than their darker skinned counterparts. Having light skin reduced the amount time served in prison by 11 per cent. The study is consistent with the findings of similar studies on skin tone and sentencing of black men.

“According to The Minority Brief, the study authors controlled factors including prior record, conviction date and weight; they also considered if the woman in question was serving time for robbery or homicide, which tend to carry long sentences.”