For three decades social scientists have been trying to figure
out, with little success, how a person’s race affects the
outcome of criminal cases. Now researchers have found a missing
link — court reports prepared prior to sentencing by probation
officers that consistently portray black and white juvenile
offenders differently, thus leading to harsher sentencing
recommendations for blacks. “What struck me was the profoundly
different ways the reports described children who are seemingly
different only by their race,” said George Bridges, a University
of Washington professor of sociology and lead author of a study
that examined juvenile court cases in Washington State. “The
children would be charged with the same crime, be the same age
and have the same criminal history, but the different ways they
were described was just shocking.” Bridges said that the reports
tend to depict crimes committed by blacks as being caused by
internal attributes or aspects of their character, such as being
disrespectful toward au