Shared Race/Ethnicities of Prosecutor and Defendant: A Test of Competing Hypotheses Predicting Case Outcomes

Abstract

Diversifying prosecutors’ offices and hiring more minority prosecutors have been touted as promising initiatives to address racial disparities in prosecution. However, two theoretical perspectives—social identity and internalized racism—delineate contradictory predictions on the punitiveness of minority prosecutors. The social identity perspective maintains that minority prosecutors are likely to seek better outcomes for defendants of their own race/ethnicity, whereas internalized racism proposes that minority prosecutors will be punitive to defendants of their own race/ethnicity. The present study uses the most recent data from a large urban jurisdiction to test whether the effect of shared minority identities between prosecutors and defendants on case outcomes is consistent with the social identity or internalized racism perspectives. Results suggest that minority prosecutors tend to show leniency to defendants of their own race/ethnicity; however, they are punitive toward minority defendants of a different race/ethnicity. Policy implications and directions for future research are also discussed.