Police score higher and defenders lower on social dominance orientation.

Evidence

The first empirical evidence supporting the Third Law-of-Law was gathered by Sidanius and colleagues (1994). These researchers found that Los Angeles Police Department officers, a priori theorized as hierarchy-enhancers, had significantly higher levels of SDO than did the average citizen from Los Angeles County, while public defenders (who were theorized as hierarchy attenuators) displayed SDO levels that were significantly lower than those of the average citizen of Los Angeles County. Subsequent experimental evidence showed that mock jury members higher in SDO were significantly more likely to display anti-Black judgments in both the likelihood of a guilty verdict and sentence severity once found guilty (Kemmelmeier, 2005). — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 79

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: does SDO drive people into these roles, or do the roles socialize the people who fill them? Selection versus institutionalization of hierarchy attitudes.
• SEED: Potential angle: hiring and self-selection as a hidden mechanism of systemic bias — institutions get the biased personnel they incentivize, independent of any individual animus.