Comparing Apples to Oranges:  Differences in Women’s and Men’s Incarceration and Sentencing Outcomes

Butcher, Kristin F.; Park, Kyung H.; Piehl, Anne Morrison

doi:10.3386/w23079

Cited by 6 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…This conclusion of a taste-based discrimination mechanism is in line with the modernday findings of Schanzenbach (2005) and Philippe (forthcoming) that the presence of female judges decreases the gender gap, which they interpret as evidence of a paternalistic bias of male judges. However, they contrast the conclusions of Butcher et al (2017), based on a rank order test, that tastes for gender discrimination are unlikely to drive the gender gap in sentencing.…”

Section: Resultscontrasting

confidence: 66%

The Persistence of the Criminal Justice Gender Gap: Evidence from 200 Years of Judicial Decisions

Bindler

Hjalmarsson

2020

The Journal of Law and Economics

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We document persistent gender gaps favoring females in jury convictions and judge sentences in nearly 200 years of London trials, which are unexplained by case characteristics. We find that three sharp changes in punishment severity locally affected the size and nature of the gaps, but were generally not strong enough to offset their persistence. These local effects suggest a mechanism of taste-based discrimination (paternalism) where the all-male judiciary protected females from the harshest available punishment.

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Section: Resultscontrasting

confidence: 66%

The Persistence of the Criminal Justice Gender Gap: Evidence from 200 Years of Judicial Decisions

Bindler

Hjalmarsson

2020

The Journal of Law and Economics

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“…It is also related to Anwar, Bayer and Hjalmarsson (forthcoming), who show that while the introduction of women on English juries in 1919 had no effect on overall conviction rates, it resulted in additional convictions for sex offenses and for violent crime cases with female versus male victims. 2 In assessing the role of jurors in affecting male versus female sentencing outcomes, this paper also complements a growing literature that documents and explains gender differences in sentencing (Bindler and Hjalmarsson, 2017;Butcher, Park and Piehl, 2017). More generally, this study relates to a broader literature on the impact of judge gender (Johnson, 2014;Knepper, 2018;Schanzenbach, 2005;Steffensmeier and Hebert, 1999) and other judge and jury characteristics.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 78%

The Effect of Own-Gender Juries on Conviction Rates

Hoekstra¹,

Street²

2018

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This paper examines the extent to which criminal conviction rates are affected by the similarity in gender of the defendant and jury. To identify effects, we exploit random variation in both the assignment to jury pools and the ordering of potential jurors. We do so using detailed administrative data on the juror selection process and trial proceedings for two large counties in Florida. Results indicate that own-gender juries result in significantly lower conviction rates on drug charges, though we find no evidence of effects for other charges. Estimates indicate that a one standard deviation increase in expected own-gender jurors (~10 percentage points) results in an 18 percentage point reduction in conviction rates on drug charges, which is highly significant even after adjusting for multiple comparisons. This results in a 13 percentage point decline in the likelihood of being sentenced to at least some jail time. These findings highlight how drawing an opposite-gender jury can impose significant costs on defendants, and demonstrate that owngender bias can occur even in settings where the importance of being impartial is actively pressed on participants.

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“…; Butcher et al . ) find that women are less frequently convicted and less severely sentenced when convicted. Schanzenbach () studies the interaction between the gender of the judge and the gender of the defendant, and shows that the gender gap is reduced when the judge is a woman.…”

Section: Literaturementioning

confidence: 95%

Gender Disparities in Sentencing

Philippe

2020

Economica

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This paper uses the universe of convictions in France between 2000 and 2003 to document the gender gap in sentencing. It reveals three main findings. First, during this period, and after controlling for very precise descriptions of the offences as well as other observable characteristics, women received prison sentences that were 15 days shorter, on average, than those of men who committed comparable offences. This represents a 33% decrease relative to the average sentence length in the sample (45 days in the entire sample). Second, this gender gap is also observed for mixed‐gender pairs of criminals (one man and one woman) who are convicted together, on the same day, by the same person and for the same crime. Finally, this paper presents robust evidence that the gender gap is affected by the gender of the judge, but not that of the prosecutor. Using the evolution of the courts’ composition between 2000 and 2003, the results show that a one‐standard‐deviation increase in the number of women in the court decreases the gender gap by 10%.

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Comparing Apples to Oranges: Differences in Women’s and Men’s Incarceration and Sentencing Outcomes

Cited by 6 publications

References 4 publications

The Persistence of the Criminal Justice Gender Gap: Evidence from 200 Years of Judicial Decisions

The Persistence of the Criminal Justice Gender Gap: Evidence from 200 Years of Judicial Decisions

The Effect of Own-Gender Juries on Conviction Rates

Gender Disparities in Sentencing

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