Exploring gender disparities in the prosecution of theft cases: Propensity score matching on data from German court files

This article engages in the discussion about gender disparities in prosecutorial decision-making. Appling propensity score matching after multiple imputation on data drawn from case files, the article examines differences in the prosecutorial treatment of male and female defendants in cases of minor theft in Germany. The matched data reveal significant differences between genders in the prosecutorial conclusion of proceedings: whereas dismissals because of other imposed sentences are more frequently imposed on male defendants, disposals with penalty fees are more common for female defendants. Hence, contrary to existing literature, the present study reveals harsher prosecutorial treatment of women because they have to pay penalty fees more frequently. The findings are contextualized with the focal concern hypothesis, which suggests that stereotypes influence decision-making in criminal proceedings. Together with the determination that women are more likely to pay fines or penalty fees completely and on time, this leads to the assumption that efficiency considerations by prosecutors influence their decision and make the imposition of penalty fees more attractive from an economic point of few.

Examining the Influence of Cosmetics on Jury Decisions

Many studies have examined how defendant characteristics influence jury decisions, but none have investigated the effect of cosmetics. We therefore examined how cosmetics influence jury decisions for young and middle-aged female defendants. In Study 1, participants were more likely to assign guilty verdicts to middle-aged defendants than young defendants and when presented with cosmetics, male participants gave young defendants longer sentences and middle-aged defendants shorter sentences. In Study 2, however, we did not replicate the age or the cosmetics effects on jury sentences, suggesting that comparisons between defendants may have influenced jury decisions in Study 1. Further work is thus still needed, but our two well-powered studies (N = 1127) provide a first exploration into the influence of cosmetics on jury decisions.

Sentencing Departures and Female Defendants: Assessing the Effects of Racial and Ethnic Threat

Prior research exploring the effects of racial and ethnic threat has largely focused on the threat posed by minority males, with little attention devoted to understanding how threat accounts for variations in punishment among racial and ethnic female defendants. Using 2003-2012 data from Florida sentencing guidelines, we examine the odds of receiving an upward and downward departure among racial and ethnic females. The results suggest that Black and Latino females sentenced in counties with larger Black populations are more likely to receive an upward departure. However, in counties with larger Latino populations, the likelihood of an upward departure decreases for Blacks and Latinos. In addition, racial and ethnic population sizes do not significantly influence the odds of a downward departure.

Judicial Politics and Sentencing Decisions

This paper investigates whether judge political affiliation contributes to racial and gender disparities in sentencing using data on over 500,000 federal defendants linked to sentencing judge. Exploiting random case assignment, we find that Republican-appointed judges sentence black defendants to 3.0 more months than similar nonblacks and female defendants to 2.0 fewer months than similar males compared to Democratic-appointed judges, 65 percent of the baseline racial sentence gap and 17 percent of the baseline gender sentence gap, respectively. These differences cannot be explained by other judge characteristics and grow substantially larger when judges are granted more discretion. (JEL D72, J15, J16, K41, K42)

The Impact of Neuroscience Data in Criminal Cases

Data regarding gender disparities in sentencing are contradictory. We argue that one reason for the mixed results is that female defendants who commit similar crimes are treated differently depending upon whether the defense portrays them as someone with serious mental deficiencies or as a normal person who got caught up in abnormal circumstances. We suggest that judges and juries use neuroscience data to support their preconceived notions of what “bad” women are like, even as defense counsel presents these data to support claims that their clients are less culpable. Using a case study approach, we do a pair-wise comparison of four appellate decisions in which female defendants were accused of committing similar crimes under similar circumstances, but for whom data regarding brain impairments differed substantially to determine what difference the neuroscience data might make in case outcomes. This analysis provides preliminary data suggesting that neuroscience data can act to promote a defendant’s blameworthiness even as it is used to mitigate the findings.