How Judges Think About Racial Disparities: Situational Decision‐making in the Criminal Justice System*

Abstract

Researchers have theorized how judges’ decision‐making may result in the disproportionate presence of Blacks and Latinos in the criminal justice system. Yet, we have little evidence about how judges make sense of these disparities and what, if anything, they do to address them. By drawing on 59 interviews with state judges in a Northeastern state, we describe, and trace the implications of, judges’ understandings of racial disparities at arraignment, plea hearings, jury selection, and sentencing. Most judges in our sample attribute disparities, in part, to differential treatment by themselves and/or other criminal justice officials, whereas some judges attribute disparities only to the disparate impact of poverty and differences in offending rates. To address disparities, judges report employing two categories of strategies: noninterventionist and interventionist. Noninterventionist strategies concern only a judge's own differential treatment, whereas interventionist strategies concern other actors’ possible differential treatment, as well as the disparate impact of poverty and facially neutral laws. We reveal how the use of noninterventionist strategies by most judges unintentionally reproduces disparities. Through our examination of judges’ understandings of racial disparities throughout the court process, we enhance understandings of American racial inequality and theorize a situational approach to decision‐making in organizational contexts.

Judicial Rotation as Centripetal Force: Sentencing in the Court Communities of South Carolina*

“…They found that workgroup members generally agreed trial penalties were a way to encourage guilty pleas; that pleas were viewed as a sign of remorse; and that pleading led to a less‐severe penalty at least in part because it allowed the defendant to avoid “emotional reactions to ‘ugly facts’” that often come out in trial (Ulmer and Kramer, : 396). Most recently, Clair and Winter () employed judge interviews to explore different strategies trial judges use to address racial disparities in various phases of the judicial process. Along these lines, qualitative inquiry was especially appealing for the current project given the findings related to county‐level variation uncovered in prior research and, more generally, given that little exists theoretically on the question of what factors and features might make a jurisdiction more likely to exhibit greater statewide legal culture.…”

“…For notable exceptions of contemporary qualitative research related to courts, see Clair and Winter (); King et al. (); Ulmer (); Ulmer and Kramer (); and Wright and Levine ().…”

When Policy Comes to Town: Discourses and Dilemmas of Implementation of a Statewide Reentry Policy in Kansas

“…Lynch (), for example, demonstrated how parole officers resented a revised characterization of their work identities based on efficient record‐keeping and actuarial methods. Others further mapped how support for new mandates varies across positions (Rudes, ) or situations (Clair and Winter, ; Steiner, Travis, and Makarios, ), and how the “instrumental impact” of policy is contingent on the alignment among local agencies and communities (Grattet and Jenness, ) and the centrality of the reforms to local workgroups (Lynch and Omori, ).…”

“…A robust set of studies has consistently drawn attention to context and agency as key moderators of the relationship between “law on the books” and “law in action” (see, e.g., Clair and Winter, ; Grattet and Jenness, ; Lynch and Omori, ; Nagel and Schulhofer, ; Rudes, ; Verma, ). This dual focus has been proposed by researchers as a way to identify mechanisms of local policy implementation and as a way to map methods for introducing and sustaining organizational change.…”

“…Supervisors may redefine top‐down reforms, altering their content or scope when providing feedback to subordinates or when reporting activities (Rudes, ). Managers may seek overrides to new reforms, altering timelines for implementation, highlighting competing priorities, or shifting responsibilities to other operators (Clair and Winter, ; Isabella, ). These patterns have been noted by researchers in the implementation of policing reforms (Engel, ; Willis, Mastrofsky, and Weisburd, ), sentencing reforms (Griffin and Wooldredge, ; Lynch and Omori, ), and corrections reforms (Taxman and Belenko, ).…”