America's judicial system is both exceptionally punitive and demonstrably unjust toward racial minorities. While these dual realities are structured into America's institutions, we propose they are also partially sustained by the intersection of ideologies that are both racialized and sacralized. Using multiple waves of the General Social Surveys and a unique measure that asks Americans to choose between two forms of judicial injustice (wrongful conviction or erroneous acquittal), we examine how white racial identity intersects with biblical literalism to bolster America's bent toward unjust punitiveness. In the main effects, Americans who affirm biblical literalism are more likely to show a preference for convicting the innocent, as are whites compared to Black Americans. Examining interaction effects, however, we find whiteness moderates the influence of biblical literalism such that only white biblical literalists (as opposed to non‐white biblical literalists or white non‐biblical literalists) are more likely to prefer wrongful conviction. Indeed, in our full model, being a white biblical literalist is the strongest predictor of preferring wrongful conviction. We theorize that preference for wrongful conviction over erroneous acquittal stems, at least in part, from the combination of sacralized authoritarianism and perceived racial threat.

中文翻译：

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种族化的宗教与司法不公：白人与圣经基督教如何相交以促进对（不公正）惩罚的偏爱

美国的司法系统对种族少数群体既是极度惩罚性的，又是明显不公正的。虽然这些双重现实构成了美国的制度，但我们认为，种族化和神圣化的意识形态交汇也可以部分维持这些双重现实。我们使用了多次全面社会调查，并采取了一种独特的措施，要求美国人在两种形式的司法不公之间做出选择（错误的定罪或错误的无罪开释），我们研究了白人的种族身份如何与圣经的文字主义相交，以支持美国对不公正惩罚的态度。在主要影响中，肯定了圣经文字主义的美国人与白人相比，更倾向于表现出对无辜者定罪的意愿，而白人则更是如此。但是，检查交互作用的影响，我们发现白度缓和了圣经文字主义的影响，因此只有白人圣经文字主义者（与非白人圣经文字主义者或白人非圣经文字主义者相对）更倾向于错误定罪。确实，在我们的完整模型中，成为白人圣经的文字主义者是更倾向于错误定罪的最强预测指标。我们将对错误定罪的偏爱推定为对错误无罪开释的偏爱，至少部分原因是极权主义和专制种族主义的结合。