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https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1z9a-Ctxt6mTKbtUKBGRdfAaEmf1n4vMJLIbqTROFK3Y/edit?usp=sharing

Abstract

The three-fold increase in the U.S. incarceration rate over the last one-half century has disproportionately affected blacks, as the black incarceration rate remains five times as high as the white incarceration rate. At the same time, research aimed at explaining the persistent race-based disparity in incarceration rates remains limited. We study sources of racial differences in criminal justice outcomes using administrative data from Texas, North Carolina, and Arkansas. We document large racial disparities in incarceration conditional on rich controls for case and defendant characteristics. Black defendants are 19-46% more likely to receive an incarceration sentence than similar white defendants arrested for the same offense. Disparities emerge in both charging and sentencing. In Texas and Arkansas, over 40% of the unexplained racial gap is between-jurisdiction; black defendants are concentrated in counties where courts treat all defendants more punitively. Exploiting within-defendant variation in case jurisdiction, we argue that the across-jurisdiction variation in punishment we identify reflects causal differences across court systems in punitiveness. Moreover, we argue that the relationship between jurisdiction punitiveness and the black share of the arrested can be explained by in-group bias--voters prefer more severe punishment when offenders are more likely to belong to a different racial group. This mechanism suggests that the relationship will follow an inverted U-shape; while white voters prefer more punitive policy as the black share of defendants increases, for jurisdictions with larger black populations, the pivotal voter is more likely to be black. This prediction is borne out in the data. Data on racial animus and policy preferences by race and local demographics provide additional support.