Racial Bias in Bail Decisions

Abstract

Silver, Alex Torgovitsky, and numerous seminar participants for helpful comments and suggestions. Molly Bunke, Kevin DeLuca, and Amy Wickett provided excellent research assistance. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

Linking parental incarceration and family dynamics associated with intergenerational transmission: A life‐course perspective*

“…Recent increased interest in the effects of incarceration on children has undoubtedly been influenced by studies indicating rapid growth in the use of incarceration within the United States, the large size of the prison population, and disproportionate effects on poor and minority individuals and families (Wildeman, ). The PI literature thus fits well in many respects with other basic criminological studies that have produced results revealing biases in sentencing decisions (Kutateladze, Andiloro, Johnson, & Spohn, ), inequitable practices associated with bail and other pretrial decisions (Arnold, Dobbie, & Yang, ), and deleterious consequences of system involvement, particularly for minority individuals (Pager, ). Yet even the findings from studies that have focused primarily on justice system disparities (e.g., by race/ethnicity and gender) indicate that prior offenses and current offense seriousness are robust predictors of the odds of incarceration and of sentence length (Steffensmeier, Ulmer, & Kramer, ).…”

Beliefs about Gender

“…Unlike in the standard models of statistical discrimination, our experimental evidence suggests that beliefs are inaccurate in equilibrium. Recent research on gender (Bohren, Imas, and Rosenberg 2017), ethnicity (Glover, Pallais, and Paviente 2017), and race (Arnold, Dobbie, and Yang 2018) shows that inaccurate beliefs that look very much like stereotypes are at the heart of discriminatory practices. Because our evidence shows that beliefs about oneself and others are shaped by very similar psychological forces, the mechanisms that reduce the gap in self-confidence are also likely to reduce discrimination.…”

Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System: Prevalence, Causes, and a Search for Solutions

“…As at other stages of the processing of a criminal defendant, racial disparities exist for judges’ decisions about pretrial detention, including defendants’ access to bail (Arnold, Dobbie, & Yang, ; Schlesinger, , ; Sutton, ). Take, for example, the findings from several studies of the pretrial processing of felony defendants in state courts (Schlesinger, , ; Sutton, ).…”