Fascinating and sobering evidence of sentencing discrimination

Colorado Law Professor William Pizzi has been kind enough to pass along and arrange for my posting a fascinating article he has co-written concerning the influence of Afro-centric features on sentences.  The article, which is due to be published in the Michigan Journal of Race and Law in the spring, details "a type of discrimination related to race that is taking place within racial categories, namely, discrimination on the basis of a person's Afro-centric features:"

By Afro-centric features, we mean those features that are perceived as typical of African Americans, e.g., darker skin, fuller lips, or a broader nose.  What our research found was that when one examines sentencing from this perspective, those inmates who have more pronounced Afro-centric features tend to receive longer sentences than others within their racial category who have less pronounced Afro-centric features.

If you are intrigued by this brief account of the piece (and how could you not be), you can download the full draft here:

Download pizzi_et_al_psych_draft_dec_2004.doc