Adults’ facial characteristics predict whether and how severely they are sentenced in the adult criminal justice system. We investigate whether characteristics of White and Latinx male youths’ faces predict the severity of their processing in the juvenile justice system. Among a sample of first-time offenders, despite no differences in the severity of their offenses, youth who were perceived by naïve observers as more dominant, less trustworthy, less healthy, and having darker skin were more likely to receive harsher sanctions. Thus, extralegal factors like appearance may bias legal decisions that place some youth at increased risk for more restrictive sanctioning. Our findings highlight the need for structured approaches to juvenile processing decisions that take youths’ appearance out of the picture.

成人的面部特征可以预测在成人刑事司法系统中是否判刑以及判刑的严重程度。我们调查白人和拉丁裔男性青年面孔的特征是否预示了他们在少年司法系统中处理的严重性。在初犯的样本中，尽管其犯罪行为的严重程度没有差异，但天真的观察者认为青年人更具统治力，不那么值得信赖，健康程度较低，皮肤黝黑，他们更有可能受到更严厉的制裁。因此，法外因素，例如外表，可能会使一些青少年的法律决定产生偏见，使某些年轻人面临更多限制性制裁的风险增加。我们的研究结果突出表明，需要采取结构化的方法来处理青少年的处理决定，以使年轻人的外貌脱颖而出。