BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) - A review of North Dakota’s criminal justice system shows that courts are collecting little information on the race and gender of defendants.
The review from the Council of State Government found that 80 percent of sentencing records from 2006 to 2014 don’t include the defendant’s race, and 52 percent don’t specify gender, the Bismarck Tribune (https://bit.ly/1WfalqR ) reported. It also found that offenses weren’t labeled consistently across the state, with keywords such as marijuana and DUI being used interchangeably for other similar words.
Project manager Katie Mosehauer said the missing data will keep the team from analyzing demographic trends at the sentencing stage. But she said the data collection issues should be easy to fix.
Mosehauer said collecting demographic information is important because it can explain who’s coming through the court system and how different types and lengths of sentences are distributed across race, age and gender groups.
A previous study of the court system found that African Americans and Native Americans were arrested and imprisoned at rates proportionally higher than their state population.
Testimony collected through surveys, meetings and letters “often revealed a belief that minority offenders sometimes receive longer sentences than whites in instances when other factors, such as criminal history, do not differ significantly,” the report said.
The North Dakota Department of Corrections’ Minority Justice Implementation Committee recently decided to send a letter to Chief Justice Gerald VandeWalle to express its concern over the lack of data and to encourage him to ask the Council of State Government for recommendations about how to improve it.
State officials and the Council of State Government are examining potential policy changes to cut recidivism and keep people out of prison.
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Information from: Bismarck Tribune, https://www.bismarcktribune.com
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