Racial/Ethnic and Gender Disparities in Anger Management Therapy as a Probation Condition

Objective: This study examined whether race/ethnicity and gender predicted sentencing to anger management therapy as a probation condition. Hypotheses: We predicted judges would be more likely to assign African Americans and Hispanics, and males to anger management than Caucasians and women, respectively. We hypothesized demographic variables would predict assignment to anger management beyond legal and nondefendant extralegal variables. Method: Data for this study are administrative and originate from an adult probation department in southern Texas. The sample (N = 4,001; 72.3% male) was 53.4% Caucasian, 28.6% African American, 16.7% Hispanic, 0.9% other, and 0.4% unknown and included individuals who had committed violent (14.2%) and nonviolent (85.8%) offenses. Results: Data analyses consisted of binary logistic regression, with anger management placement as the dependent variable, and offense, judge, county, race/ethnicity, and gender as the independent variables. The final model emerged as statistically significant, chi(2)(16) = 552.76, p < .001, Nagelkerke's R-2 = .32. Specifically, the odds of receiving anger management were 1.71 times higher for African Americans than Caucasians, and 1.68 times higher for men than women. Exploratory analyses examining a Race/Ethnicity x Gender interaction revealed the odds of receiving anger management was significantly lower for Caucasian women than all other racial/ethnic by gender groups. Conclusion: Results suggest being part of a racial/ethnic minority group or male may disproportionately increase the odds of being required to comply with extra time and fiscal requirements associated with anger management as compared to one's racial/ethnic and gender counterparts who have committed similar crimes.