Abstract

Although diversifying the criminal justice apparatus may yield more equitable outcomes, empirical tests of how prosecutors’ race affects their decisions are limited. Informed by Internalized Racism Theory (IRT), we hypothesized that Black prosecutors would be most punitive toward Black defendants, followed by Latino/a defendants, and least toward White and Asian defendants. Employing hierarchical logistic modelling, we analyzed data from a large prosecutorial office to examine the extent to which prosecutors’ race is associated with racial disparities in custodial plea offers and charge reductions. We found notable support for our hypotheses. In cases disposed of by Black prosecutors, Black and Latino/defendants are significantly more likely to receive custodial plea offers than are similarly-situated White and Asian defendants. Although the direction of the relationship with charge reductions was in line with our hypotheses, no significant effects were detected.

摘要

尽管刑事司法机构多元化可能会产生更公平的结果，但对检察官的种族如何影响其决定的实证检验是有限的。根据内在种族主义理论（IRT），我们假设黑人检察官对黑人被告的惩罚力度最大，其次是拉丁裔/非裔被告，而对白人和亚裔被告的惩罚最少。我们采用层次逻辑模型，分析了一个大型检察机关的数据，以研究检察官的种族与羁押认罪和指控减少方面的种族差异之间的关联程度。我们发现我们的假设得到了显着的支持。在黑人检察官处理的案件中，黑人和拉丁裔/被告明显更多与处境相似的白人和亚裔被告相比，他们更有可能收到拘留认罪请求。尽管与电荷减少的关系方向符合我们的假设，但没有检测到显着的影响。