IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/econom/v87y2020i348p1037-1077.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gender Disparities in Sentencing

Author

Listed:
  • Arnaud Philippe

Abstract

This paper uses the universe of convictions in France between 2000 and 2003 to document the gender gap in sentencing. It reveals three main findings. First, during this period, and after controlling for very precise descriptions of the offences as well as other observable characteristics, women received prison sentences that were 15 days shorter, on average, than those of men who committed comparable offences. This represents a 33% decrease relative to the average sentence length in the sample (45 days in the entire sample). Second, this gender gap is also observed for mixed‐gender pairs of criminals (one man and one woman) who are convicted together, on the same day, by the same person and for the same crime. Finally, this paper presents robust evidence that the gender gap is affected by the gender of the judge, but not that of the prosecutor. Using the evolution of the courts’ composition between 2000 and 2003, the results show that a one‐standard‐deviation increase in the number of women in the court decreases the gender gap by 10%.

Suggested Citation

  • Arnaud Philippe, 2020. "Gender Disparities in Sentencing," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 87(348), pages 1037-1077, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:econom:v:87:y:2020:i:348:p:1037-1077
    DOI: 10.1111/ecca.12333
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ecca.12333
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ecca.12333?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Beatton, Tony & Kidd, Michael P. & Machin, Stephen, 2018. "Gender crime convergence over twenty years: Evidence from Australia," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 275-288.
    2. Gavrilova, Evelina, 2019. "A partner in crime: Assortative matching and bias in the crime market," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 598-612.
    3. Briggs Depew & Ozkan Eren & Naci Mocan, 2017. "Judges, Juveniles, and In-Group Bias," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60(2), pages 209-239.
    4. Scott E. Carrell & Marianne E. Page & James E. West, 2010. "Sex and Science: How Professor Gender Perpetuates the Gender Gap," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(3), pages 1101-1144.
    5. Claire S. H. Lim & James M. Snyder Jr. & David Strömberg Jr., 2015. "The Judge, the Politician, and the Press: Newspaper Coverage and Criminal Sentencing across Electoral Systems," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 103-135, October.
    6. Philippe, Arnaud, 2017. "Incarcerate one to calm the others? Spillover effects of incarceration among criminal groups: Job Market Paper," TSE Working Papers 17-840, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    7. Arnaud Philippe & Aurélie Ouss, 2018. ""No Hatred or Malice, Fear or Affection": Media and Sentencing," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(5), pages 2134-2178.
    8. Shamena Anwar & Patrick Bayer & Randi Hjalmarsson, 2014. "The Role of Age in Jury Selection and Trial Outcomes," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(4), pages 1001-1030.
    9. Boring, Anne, 2017. "Gender biases in student evaluations of teaching," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 27-41.
    10. Adam N. Glynn & Maya Sen, 2015. "Identifying Judicial Empathy: Does Having Daughters Cause Judges to Rule for Women's Issues?," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 59(1), pages 37-54, January.
    11. Anna Bindler & Randi Hjalmarsson, 2020. "The Persistence of the Criminal Justice Gender Gap: Evidence from 200 Years of Judicial Decisions," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63(2), pages 297-339.
    12. Astrid Kunze & Amalia R. Miller, 2017. "Women Helping Women? Evidence from Private Sector Data on Workplace Hierarchies," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(5), pages 769-775, December.
    13. Campaniello, Nadia & Gavrilova, Evelina, 2018. "Uncovering the gender participation gap in crime," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 289-304.
    14. Shamena Anwar & Patrick Bayer & Randi Hjalmarsson, 2012. "The Impact of Jury Race in Criminal Trials," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(2), pages 1017-1055.
    15. Manuel F. Bagues & Berta Esteve-Volart, 2010. "Can Gender Parity Break the Glass Ceiling? Evidence from a Repeated Randomized Experiment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(4), pages 1301-1328.
    16. Friederike Mengel & Jan Sauermann & Ulf Zölitz, 2019. "Gender Bias in Teaching Evaluations," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(2), pages 535-566.
    17. Sonja B. Starr, 2015. "Estimating Gender Disparities in Federal Criminal Cases," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 17(1), pages 127-159.
    18. Mustard, David B, 2001. "Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Disparities in Sentencing: Evidence from the U.S. Federal Courts," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(1), pages 285-314, April.
    19. Philippe, Arnaud, 2017. "Incarcerate one to calm the others? Spillover effects of incarceration among criminal groups: Job Maket Paper," IAST Working Papers 17-70, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).
    20. Max Schanzenbach, 2005. "Racial and Sex Disparities in Prison Sentences: The Effect of District-Level Judicial Demographics," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(1), pages 57-92, January.
    21. Moses Shayo & Asaf Zussman, 2011. "Judicial Ingroup Bias in the Shadow of Terrorism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(3), pages 1447-1484.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cécile Bourreau-Dubois & Myriam Doriat-Duban & Bruno Jeandidier & Jean-Claude Ray, 2023. "Do child support guidelines result in lower inter-judge disparity? The case of the French advisory child support guidelines," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 55(1), pages 87-116, February.
    2. Bourreau-Dubois, Cécile & Doriat-Duban, Myriam & Jeandidier, Bruno & Ray, Jean-Claude, 2020. "Does gender diversity in panels of judges matter? Evidence from French child support cases," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    3. Bjørkheim, Julie Brun & Nygård, Odd E., 2024. "Gender Differences in Tax Evasion: Evidence from Norwegian Administrative Data," Discussion Papers 2024/8, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
    4. Nikolaos Theodoropoulos & John Forth & Alex Bryson, 2022. "Are Women Doing It for Themselves? Female Managers and the Gender Wage Gap," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 84(6), pages 1329-1355, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Philippe, Arnaud, 2017. "Gender disparities in criminal justice," TSE Working Papers 17-762, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    2. Philippe, Arnaud, 2017. "Does introducing lay people in criminal courts affect judicial decisions? Evidence from French reform," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 1-15.
    3. Samantha Bielen & Peter Grajzl & Wim Marneffe, 2021. "Blame based on one's name? Extralegal disparities in criminal conviction and sentencing," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 51(3), pages 469-521, June.
    4. Bjørkheim, Julie Brun & Nygård, Odd E., 2024. "Gender Differences in Tax Evasion: Evidence from Norwegian Administrative Data," Discussion Papers 2024/8, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
    5. Raphael Corbi & Rafael Ferreira & Jaqueline Oliveira & Danilo Souza, 2021. "Female judges and in-group bias in labor courts," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 41(3), pages 1313-1321.
    6. Paul Heidhues & Botond KH{o}szegi & Philipp Strack, 2019. "Overconfidence and Prejudice," Papers 1909.08497, arXiv.org.
    7. Samantha Bielen & Peter Grajzl, 2021. "Prosecution or Persecution? Extraneous Events and Prosecutorial Decisions," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 18(4), pages 765-800, December.
    8. Friederike Mengel & Jan Sauermann & Ulf Zölitz, 2019. "Gender Bias in Teaching Evaluations," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(2), pages 535-566.
    9. Julia Godfrey & Kegon Teng Kok Tan & Mariyana Zapryanova, 2023. "The Effect of Parole Board Racial Composition on Prisoner Outcomes," Working Papers 2023-011, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    10. Arceo-Gomez, Eva O. & Campos-Vazquez, Raymundo M., 2022. "Gender Bias in Evaluation Processes," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    11. Ahrsjö, Ulrika & Niknami, Susan & Palme, Mårten, 2022. "Identity in Court Decision-Making," Working Paper Series 4/2022, Stockholm University, Swedish Institute for Social Research.
    12. Philippe, Arnaud, 2017. "Do jurors and professional judges differ in their treatment of crime?: Evidence from French reform," TSE Working Papers 17-763, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    13. Ash, Elliott & Asher, Sam & Bhowmick, Aditi & Bhupatiraju, Sandeep & Chen, Daniel L. & Devi, Tatanya & Goessmann, Christoph & Novosad, Paul & Siddiqi, Bilal, 2022. "Measuring Gender and Religious Bias in the Indian Judiciary," TSE Working Papers 22-1395, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    14. Shen, Jianfei & Wang, Qiqi, 2023. "Do men and women discriminate against women for the same reason? Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    15. Laura Hospido & Carlos Sanz, 2021. "Gender Gaps in the Evaluation of Research: Evidence from Submissions to Economics Conferences," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 83(3), pages 590-618, June.
    16. Gavrilova, Evelina, 2021. "Females in Crime," MPRA Paper 105891, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Laura Hospido & Carlos Sanz, 2019. "Gender gaps in the evaluation of research: evidence from submissions to economics conferences (Updated March 2020)," Working Papers 1918, Banco de España, revised Mar 2020.
    18. Bastien Michel & Camille Hémet, 2022. "Custodial versus non-custodial sentences: Long-run evidence from an anticipated reform," PSE Working Papers halshs-03899897, HAL.
    19. Baron, Justus & Ganglmair, Bernhard & Persico, Nicola & Simcoe, Timothy & Tarantino, Emanuele, 2024. "Representation is not sufficient for selecting gender diversity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(6).
    20. Ayllón, Sara, 2022. "Online teaching and gender bias," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:econom:v:87:y:2020:i:348:p:1037-1077. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.