Sentencing Disparities in US Terrorism Prosecutions, 2001-2018

Few studies have examined racial or other disparities in terrorism sentences. Unlike previous research, this study incorporates all types of terrorism, several severity levels, and both state and federal cases. Using a database including all US terrorism cases between 2001 and 2018 (n = 825), we test for sentencing disparities based on race/ethnicity, gender, citizenship, state/federal court, and type of terrorism. Our results show some evidence for disparities, with foreign nationals and White supremacists receiving longer sentences and foreign non-jihadi terrorists receiving shorter sentences. We find limited evidence for racial disparities, including longer sentences for minority defendants within some severity levels. The “liberation hypothesis” predicting greater disparities for less-serious crimes was mainly unsupported. Whether prosecution occurred in state or federal court had little effect, suggesting that states are well-equipped to prosecute terrorists. Compared to jihadi defendants, anti-government defendants received larger “discounts” between initial allegations and charges of conviction, dramatically affecting sentence length.