Racial Divisions and Criminal Justice: Evidence from Southern State Courts

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Feigenberg, Benjamin; Miller, Conrad
• 署名单位: University of Illinois System; University of Illinois Chicago; University of Illinois Chicago Hospital; University of California System; University of California Berkeley; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-ECONOMIC POLICY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7731
• DOI: 10.1257/pol.20180688
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 207-240
• 关键词: disparities; PUNISHMENT; judge; BIAS

摘要

The US criminal justice system is exceptionally punitive. We test whether racial heterogeneity is one cause, exploiting cross-jurisdiction variation in punishment severity in four Southern states. We estimate the causal effect of jurisdiction on arrest outcomes using a fixed effects model that incorporates extensive charge and defendant controls. We validate our estimates using defendants charged in multiple jurisdictions. Consistent with a model of ingroup bias in electorate preferences, the relationship between local severity and Black population share follows an inverted U-shape. Within states, defendants are 27-54 percent more likely to be incarcerated in peak heterogeneous jurisdictions than in homogeneous jurisdictions. We estimate that confinement rates and race-based confinement rate gaps would fall by 15 percent if all jurisdictions adopted the severity of homogeneous jurisdictions within their state.