TY - JOUR
T1 - Discretionary Prosecutorial Decision-Making
T2 - Gender, Sexual Orientation, and Bias in Intimate Partner Violence
AU - Cox, Jennifer
AU - Daquin, Jane C.
AU - Neal, Tess M.S.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to acknowledge Sydnee Erickson, Hannah Lind, Elizabeth MacNeil, and Lauren Meaux for their help with data collection and cleaning. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation (Award Number: 1748371).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology.
PY - 2022/11
Y1 - 2022/11
N2 - Prosecutors exercise substantial discretion within the criminal justice process, potentially allowing for discrepant treatment of criminal cases. The purpose of this research was to examine the association between prosecutorial implicit biases and victim gender and sexual orientation in an intimate partner violence (IPV) case. Participants, 201 prosecutors from across the United States, completed two Implicit Association Tests to measure implicit gender attitudes and implicit attitudes regarding lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer individuals. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions (opposite-sex couple/female victim, opposite-sex couple/male victim, same-sex couple/female victim, same-sex couple/male victim) and read a case file of an alleged IPV arrest. Consistent with our hypotheses, prosecutors were 65% more likely to prosecute under the severest criminal penalty when the victim was female or included an opposite-sex couple. However, we found no evidence that implicit biases related to prosecutorial decisions.
AB - Prosecutors exercise substantial discretion within the criminal justice process, potentially allowing for discrepant treatment of criminal cases. The purpose of this research was to examine the association between prosecutorial implicit biases and victim gender and sexual orientation in an intimate partner violence (IPV) case. Participants, 201 prosecutors from across the United States, completed two Implicit Association Tests to measure implicit gender attitudes and implicit attitudes regarding lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer individuals. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions (opposite-sex couple/female victim, opposite-sex couple/male victim, same-sex couple/female victim, same-sex couple/male victim) and read a case file of an alleged IPV arrest. Consistent with our hypotheses, prosecutors were 65% more likely to prosecute under the severest criminal penalty when the victim was female or included an opposite-sex couple. However, we found no evidence that implicit biases related to prosecutorial decisions.
KW - decision-making
KW - gender
KW - implicit bias
KW - intimate partner violence
KW - prosecutor
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85133333562&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85133333562&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/00938548221106498
DO - 10.1177/00938548221106498
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85133333562
SN - 0093-8548
VL - 49
SP - 1699
EP - 1719
JO - Criminal Justice and Behavior
JF - Criminal Justice and Behavior
IS - 11
ER -