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Racial Divisions and Criminal Justice: Evidence from Southern State Courts / Benjamin Feigenberg, Conrad Miller.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Feigenberg, Benjamin.
- Series:
- Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w24726.
- NBER working paper series no. w24726
- Language:
- English
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);
- Other Title:
- Racial Divisions and Criminal Justice
- Place of Publication:
- Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2018.
- Summary:
- The US criminal justice system is exceptionally punitive. We test whether racial heterogeneity is one cause, exploiting cross-jurisdiction variation in punishment in four Southern states. We estimate the causal effect of jurisdiction on arrest charge outcome, validating our estimates using a quasi-experimental research design based on defendants charged in multiple jurisdictions. Consistent with a model of in-group bias in electorate preferences, the relationship between local punishment severity and black population share follows an inverted U-shape. Within states, defendants are 27%-54% more likely to be sentenced to incarceration in 'peak' heterogeneous jurisdictions than in homogeneous jurisdictions.
- Notes:
- Print version record
- June 2018.
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