Examining Disparities in Case Dispositions and Sentencing Outcomes for Domestic Violent Extremists in the United States

Abstract

This study examines how strength of ideology, victim status, and other factors shape prosecutorial and sentencing decisions in cases of far-right extremist homicide. We draw from multiple conceptual frameworks to understand how assessments of defendants’ blameworthiness, crime seriousness, and other practical constraints influence the severity of legal outcomes. Our analysis of data from the United States Extremist Crime Database finds that while demographic attributes of homicide participants have little influence on legal outcomes, strong affiliations to domestic extremism and indicators of crime seriousness and risk significantly predict harsher treatment of defendants. We contextualize our findings within the broader criminological sentencing literature and discuss their implications for understanding how the American criminal justice system responds to domestic violent extremism.

Power Simulations of Rare Event Counts and Introduction to the ‘Power Lift’ Metric

“…Similar measurement issues arise across criminology. Scholars studying homicides, sexual assaults, or other types of uncommon victimization (Schnell et al, 2017); death penalty, wrongful conviction, and criminal sentencing scholars (Koons-Witt et al, 2014); those studying terrorist attacks and school shootings (Chermak, 1994;Gruenewald et al, 2022); and those interested in wide variety of correctional outcomes (Logan et al, 2017): all of them must grapple with rare events. Our ability to intervene and test results in these contexts is critical, but we must also be able to retain the exactitude and statistical inferences of our scientific approach (Barnes et al, 2020;Eck, 2006).…”

“…By necessity, criminologists study statistically rare events (MacDonald & Lattimore, 2010), including outcomes such as the use of force (Adams & Alpert, 2023;Adams et al, 1999;Garner et al, 2002;Schafer et al, 2022), homicides, sexual assaults, or other types of uncommon victimization (Schnell et al, 2017); death penalty, wrongful conviction, and criminal sentencing scholars (Koons-Witt et al, 2014); those studying terrorist attacks and school shootings (Chermak, 1994;Gruenewald et al, 2022); and those interested in wide variety of correctional outcomes (Logan et al, 2017). In most settings, these outcomes will not be normally distributed.…”