CHRISTINA HOFF SOMMERS: Criminal sentencing: Do women get off easy?

Related: Research shows large unexplained gender disparities in federal criminal cases. “Prof. Starr’s recent paper, ‘Estimating Gender Disparities in Federal Criminal Cases,’ looks closely at a large dataset of federal cases, and reveals some significant findings. After controlling for the arrest offense, criminal history, and other prior characteristics, ‘men receive 63% longer sentences on average than women do,’ and ‘[w]omen are…twice as likely to avoid incarceration if convicted.’ This gender gap is about six times as large as the racial disparity that Prof. Starr found in another recent paper.”