Three Strikes and You’re Out: The Demographics of Indiana’s Habitual Offender Law

Abstract

Decades of research have shown that racial minorities face a higher rate of incarceration and lengthier prison sentences in the United States compared to their White counterparts (Alexander, 2012; Steffensmeier et al., 1998; Chiricos & Crawford, 1995). Moreover, racial minorities and young people often face disproportionately harsher penalties for specific offenses such as drug possession (Steffensmeier et al., 1998).

One of the primary drivers of racial inequality in criminal sentencing has been “habitual offender” laws (Crow & Johnson, 2008). These laws impose sentence enhancements for repeat felony offenders and have been enacted by multiple states across the country. While scholars have repeatedly found that Florida’s habitual offender law has been disproportionately applied to racial minorities, virtually no attention has been devoted to Indiana’s habitual offender law (Crawford & Johnson, 2008; Caravelis et al., 2011; Beres & Griffith, 1998).

In order to fill this gap in the literature, I used the Indiana Prosecutor Case Management System to examine case summaries of all habitual offender cases from 2015 to 2019 in Marion, Indiana’s largest and most racially diverse county. For each legal case, I coded the defendant’s race and age, the quantity and nature of their past crimes, the length of the defendant’s sentence, and whether or not they were convicted of the habitual offender enhancement. I then examined the statistical associations between these variables to ascertain whether Indiana’s habitual offender law has been disproportionately applied to young defendants, racial minorities, or drug offenders.