Courts in more republican-leaning counties sentence black individuals to longer prison terms than white individuals

The United States puts more people in prison than any other country in the world, and Black and Latinx individuals are disproportionately incarcerated and for longer. In new research which examines over 500,000 people admitted to state prisons through county courts, Katherine A. Durante finds that Black and Latinx individuals are sentenced, on average, for longer than White individuals, and that Black individuals are sentenced more harshly as the percentage of voters for Donald Trump in a county increases. These findings, she writes, raise questions of bias and unequal justice in the US justice system.