Same-race judges punish in-group juveniles more harshly out of tough love

Evidence

Depew, Eren, and Mocan (2017) analyzed the decisions of juvenile court judges in Louisiana and found negative in-group bias. If juvenile defendants were assigned to a judge of his/her own race, they were more likely to be placed on custody and received longer sentences. As explained by the authors, this finding could be driven by a number of alternative mechanisms. For example, it could be the result of “tough love.” Judges may believe that future criminal activity of a juvenile, who is of the same race as the judge, can be prevented by being tough on that juvenile. That is, judges may be imposing stiffer punishment now to reduce recidivism later. Alternatively, judges may be concerned about generating an impression of being biased against defendants who are of another race. Thus, they may mete out the “correct” amount of punishment to defendants who are in their in-group, but they may treat defendants who are of another race more leniently. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 764

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader workhorse vs in-group bias model distinction and to behavioral-economics work on in-group favoritism more broadly (e.g., social identity theory).
• SEED: Angle: the ‘representativeness concern’ mechanism — judges over-correcting for anticipated accusations of bias — as a cautionary tale for diversity initiatives in institutions beyond courts.