Prosecutors maintain immense power over criminal case processing. Yet, they have not historically been a major target for reforms designed to foster equality and reduce racial disparity in criminal justice outcomes. Using in-depth interviews with 47 line prosecutors, this study explores how prosecutors think about race in criminal justice, and what they believe their role should be in addressing racial disparities. Results show that prosecutors broadly embrace a colorblind approach to prosecution and argue that race should be disregarded in case processing. Their support for colorblind prosecution is reinforced by race-neutral cultural scripts that can be linked to the social and operational realities of prosecutors' work environment. These findings suggest that efforts to improve fairness in case processing will be more effective if they are accompanied by widespread prosecutorial culture change. Such efforts may also benefit from the consideration of structural features of the prosecutor's office that currently lead line agents to embrace colorblindness and reject a larger role in alleviating racial disparities.

The literature on sentencing has devoted ample consideration to how prosecutors and judges incorporate priorities such as retribution and public safety into their decision making, typically using legal and extralegal characteristics as analytic proxies. In contrast, the role of case processing efficiency in determining punishment outcomes has garnered little attention. Using recent data from a large Florida jurisdiction, we examine the influence of case screening and disposition timeliness on sentence outcomes in felony cases. We find that lengthier case processing time is highly and positively associated with punitive outcomes at sentencing. The more time prosecutors spend on a case post-filing, the more likely defendants are to receive custodial sentences and longer sentences. Case screening time, although not affecting the imposition of custodial sentences, is also positively associated with sentence length. These findings are discussed through the lens of instrumental and expressive functions of punishment.

This study offers a localized test of the bifurcation hypothesis, which suggests that jurisdictions adopting decarceral policies for lower-level offenses often do so at the expense of increased punitiveness toward more serious offenses. Relying on fresh data from Florida, we examine how adopting a new diversion program targeting low-level traffic offenses affects overall prosecutorial diversion decisions. The new program is associated with an estimated 8% decrease in the odds of diversion to existing programs. Analyses of marginal effects suggest that the new program reduced diversion for more serious offenses by up to 43%. Although having a prior record disadvantaged defendants overall, defendants with more prior arrests experienced less of a diversion penalty after the new program; but defendants with more prior prison sentences were treated even more punitively after program implementation. Policy Implications: In support of the bifurcation hypothesis, the effects of a new prosecutor-led diversion program for low-level offenses were attenuated by decreased diversion usage for other programs targeting more serious offenses. New diversion policies should focus on the adoption of programs that expand the pool of divertible cases rather than focusing only on minor offenses. Prosecutors should also critically examine prior record considerations in diversion offers, which disqualify defendants from many diversion programs.