Race, Ethnicity and Politics Workshop: Allison Harris (Yale University)

Talk Title: "Can Racial Diversity Among Judges Affect Sentencing Outcomes?"

Racial disparities in the U.S. criminal justice system are well-documented, as is scholarly and practitioner interest in how different types of diversity within government institutions can alter institutional performance. Using felony case data from a large court system, I explore the relationship between racial diversity among the judges comprising a court and individual judges' sentencing decisions. I find that as the proportion of Black judges in a courthouse increases, White judges are more likely to render incarceration sentences in cases with White defendants and Black judges are less likely to render incarceration sentences in cases with Black defendants. This only occurs when judges work in close proximity to their Black colleagues. Judges' responses to racial diversity decrease the Black-White gap in the probability of incarceration by up to fifteen percentage-points, greatly improving equity in sentencing.