Punishing minority defendants can function to preserve existing social hierarchies

Evidence

People high in SDO have a desire to justify systematic inequalities and espouse views which would maintain existing hierarchies. Protecting existing hierarchies might explain why prosecutors tend to score higher on measures of SDO than either defense attorneys or jurors (Sidanius, Liu, Shaw, & Pratto, 1994). Given the various ways in which minorities are disadvantaged in the CJS (e.g., Hunt, 2015), punishing minority defendants may be a mechanism to bolster existing hierarches (Sidanius et al., 1994). — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 873

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to the reader’s constructivist-enemy research: here institutional punishment of out-groups within a criminal system serves a hierarchy-maintenance function rather than purely an equity one. — connects to: Third-party punishment can stabilize any cultural trait within a group — Joe Henrich and Robert Boyd, The Evolution of Conformist…, 117
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law: A Definitive Look at…, 873