American Equity and Justice Group

Instructions

Disproportionate treatment can occur at each stage of a criminal legal case, from arrest through sentencing, and beyond. “Cumulative disproportionality” reflects all the decisions made up to that point in time.

AEJG built and maintains these Equity Dashboards to help you begin to consider how each choice in the life of a criminal case may contribute to, reflect, or help resolve disproportionality and inequity. To start, explore our data sources or select a use case to learn more about the Equity Dashboard types.

Use the Equity Dashboard

Use Cases

Find out how different races are impacted by conviction disproportionality over time.

Conviction Proportionality

Understand a judge's typical sentencing record compared to other judges.

Sentencing Proportionality: Summary

Find out how different races are impacted by sentencing disproportionality over time.

Sentencing Proportionality: Deep Dive

Look up all cases in a state where the person was given more than 20 years and was under 18 years old.

Case Drill Down / Export

Understand if the proportionality comparisons are statistically significant

Statistics

The population of a particular demographic group within the criminal legal system should closely mirror the representation of that same group in the general population. By overlaying Caseload Forecast Council data with Washington State census data, the Equity Dashboard displays any disproportionality that may exist.

To use this dashboard, select race, year, counties, and/or gender to see the percentage of that group in the conviction data compared to the census/population data.

Please be advised that our dataset defaults to exclude individuals sentenced to life without parole from the analysis to ensure data integrity and relevance. This decision is based on identified discrepancies that could skew the results. Users interested in including this category for comprehensive insights should adjust their selection settings accordingly and contact AEJG to get more information about data limitations.

Conviction Proportionality

If % of convictions is higher than % of population the disproportionality ratio will be above 1.
If % of convictions is lower than % of population the disproportionality ratio will be below 1.
If % of convictions is equal to % of population the disproportionality ratio will equal 1.

If you select all counties, the tool will automatically display the 5 counties that have the highest population of the selected race to display in the Ratio Trend view.

A disproportionality ratio of 1 is represented by the blue dashed line on the Ratio Trend view.

Washington State Census data does not identify Latinx as a category, so Latinx data is included in “other.”

Gender options are binary as those are the only categories collected in the dataset.

In Washington State, felony sentencing is governed by the Sentence Reform Act of 1981 (SRA) sentencing grid. The grid accounts for the seriousness of an offense and different levels of criminal history, providing the judge with a suggested sentencing length range. Then, based on that range, the judge will choose an actual sentence length. Sentencing disparity is a circumstance in which cases with similar seriousness of offense and criminal history are sentenced differently. Sentencing disparity also includes the opposite scenario, in which cases with different offense seriousness and criminal history are sentenced similarly.

We have converted the sentencing data into an average sentence length by percentage of the suggested range. If the sentencing grid requires a sentencing range of 9 to 12 months for a specific scenario:

Sentencing Proportionality: Summary

A sentence of 9 months would equate to 0% in the sentence length by percentage of the range
A sentence of 12 months would equate to 100%
A 10.5 month sentence would equate to 50%

To use this dashboard, select county, judge, race, gender, offense, and/or date range to see the average sentencing length by percentage of the suggested range. If you would like to explore the actual numbers of cases, you can scroll across the Cases & Average Sentence Length by Percentage of the Range field.

Average sentence length percentages that are 50% or higher are highlighted in red.

Instances where a judge has sentenced 20 or fewer cases are highlighted in red.

Note: Users may occasionally see a sentence that is more than 100% of the range (enhancement(s) or an exceptional sentence). There also may be situations where a sentence is less than 0% of the range. These are both because they are exceptional sentences below or above the range.

Data Sources

Washington State Census population data

Governments, nonprofit organizations, and businesses rely on the U.S. population information provided decennially through the Census. Over time, the Census Bureau has changed the way it classifies race and ethnicity. Historically, the changes have been influenced by social, political and economic factors including emancipation, immigration and civil rights. More information can be found at www.census.gov.

Washington State Caseload Forecast Council (CFC) data.

CFC data is available for the years July 1, 1999 - June 30, 2020. Outlier cases in the CFC data have been filtered out of AEJG’s sentencing views (550 cases with sentences > 9998 months). Washington’s legislature and administrative agencies use CFC data to inform their understanding of caseloads and budgets. The data, available at WA Caseload Forecast Council, includes all adult felony cases in Washington Superior Courts. The CFC obtains their data, including demographics, from the forms prepared at each felony sentencing hearing.

Data set problems and limitations

This data is used despite data limitations that can impact proportionality analysis and mask disparities.

Washington’s 39 counties do not all use the same sentencing forms and inconsistently identify race and ethnicity.
The CFC data does not enable users to identify multiracial individuals.
The CFC codes “Hispanic/Latinx” as a race instead of an ethnicity, does not include “Native Hawaiian” and “Other Pacific Islander” in its dataset.
The CFC data does not include granular racial and nonbinary gender categories.
The CFC does not include data on all sentence enhancements.

According to information provided in September, 2022, the CFC supplements its data with that maintained by the Washington State Patrol and Administrative Office of the Courts. But if there are conflicts in these data sets, the CFC defaults to its own data.

The following illustrates how data limitations can skew our understanding of disproportionality. Better race/ethnicity data would help provide answers to these questions. Better data would make disproportionality, or lack thereof, more transparent.

AEJG supports improved data keeping by the CFC and others in the criminal legal system. AEJG is also working to add more data sets to the Equity Dashboard to address limitations inherent in any one dataset. Currently, AEJG is incorporating approximately 50 years of data from the Washington State Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC).

Established in 1957 by state lawmakers, the Washington State Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) maintains information and records from court case management systems across Washington’s non-unified courts, including the Judicial Information System (JIS), the Superior Court Management and Information System (SCOMIS), the Appellate Court System (ACORDS), and Odyssey. AOC uses the data, in part, to develop operational budgets, evaluate judicial system functionality, maintain the computer system that serves the entire court system, provide continuing judicial education, compile statewide court statistics, and provide information to the judicial community, other branches of the government, and the public. The AOC tracks data from points at all stages of felony cases filed in any of Washington’s 39 superior courts.

AEJG does not expect that adding AOC data will remedy all of the limitations found in the CFC data. That will require improved data keeping by actors throughout the criminal legal system.