The Law of Averages
April 15, 2024
A study published in the National Bureau of Economic Research on October 30th, 2023, and presented at 2 NBER research conferences [here and here] (one on law and economics, and another on crime) titled “Are American juries racially discriminatory? Evidence from over a quarter million felony grand jury cases” is the largest jury study to ever be done, analyzing 300,000+ felony cases over a 3+ decade period, to test if juries are racially discriminatory.
The conclusion?
Their dataset included “every grand jury case filed from February of 1990 through July of 2022“ in the state of Texas, making it the largest study on jurors ever! (And it isn’t even close)
If Black defendants who are falsely thought to be White have it easier, that’d be evidence of anti-Black bias. If Black defendants who are falsely thought to be White have it the same, that’d be evidence against anti-Black bias. If Black defendants who are falsely thought to be White have it harder, that’d be evidence of pro-Black bias.
There were 3 possible results: direct discrimination, indirect discrimination, or no discrimination.
The researchers found that the “small but statistically significant” racial disparity that did exist between Whites and Blacks was no less when Blacks were not known to be Black compared to when Blacks were–no discrimination.
In fact, there wasn’t just no anti-Black bias, but there was anti-White bias found. Specifically, when a Black defendant was thought to be White by jurors, they were more likely to have their cases pushed forward than if a Black defendant was thought to be Black, to a larger extent than the original Black-White disparity between known races.
The authors solved one disparity but accidentally stumbled upon another.
The Black-White disparity was a result of differences in the cases of Black and White defendants, rather than any sort of racial discrimination.
The conclusion of ‘no discrimination’ was supported by the similarities between the proportion of both Black defendant groups among the felony categories.
There is one quote in which they basically summarize everything that matters (albeit it is mostly a repeat of what we went over above):
The authors conclude that Americans do not discriminate based on race when in the position of a grand jury.
P.S. I think this conclusion is a little disingenuous since they attributed discrimination as a possible explanation for the anti-Black gap between Blacks and Whites, but not for the even larger anti-White gap between Blacks with White names and Blacks with Black names. To me, it appears that while the Black-White gap is entirely due to case differences, it also seems as though jurors discriminate against Whiter names, all else equal–as we can see when they compare Blacks with different racially identifiable names.
Source (Archive)
April 15, 2024
A study published in the National Bureau of Economic Research on October 30th, 2023, and presented at 2 NBER research conferences [here and here] (one on law and economics, and another on crime) titled “Are American juries racially discriminatory? Evidence from over a quarter million felony grand jury cases” is the largest jury study to ever be done, analyzing 300,000+ felony cases over a 3+ decade period, to test if juries are racially discriminatory.
The conclusion?
Their dataset included “every grand jury case filed from February of 1990 through July of 2022“ in the state of Texas, making it the largest study on jurors ever! (And it isn’t even close)
What they did to test for discrimination was see if racial disparity goes away when comparing Black defendants whose race is accurately identified to Black defendants whose race is inaccurately identified (as White).
If Black defendants who are falsely thought to be White have it easier, that’d be evidence of anti-Black bias. If Black defendants who are falsely thought to be White have it the same, that’d be evidence against anti-Black bias. If Black defendants who are falsely thought to be White have it harder, that’d be evidence of pro-Black bias.
There were 3 possible results: direct discrimination, indirect discrimination, or no discrimination.
The researchers found that the “small but statistically significant” racial disparity that did exist between Whites and Blacks was no less when Blacks were not known to be Black compared to when Blacks were–no discrimination.
In fact, there wasn’t just no anti-Black bias, but there was anti-White bias found. Specifically, when a Black defendant was thought to be White by jurors, they were more likely to have their cases pushed forward than if a Black defendant was thought to be Black, to a larger extent than the original Black-White disparity between known races.
The authors solved one disparity but accidentally stumbled upon another.
The Black-White disparity was a result of differences in the cases of Black and White defendants, rather than any sort of racial discrimination.
The conclusion of ‘no discrimination’ was supported by the similarities between the proportion of both Black defendant groups among the felony categories.
“our approach to distinguishing between statistical or taste-based bias from other non-race-based behaviors that have disparate impact, as our approach assumes that the latter would be similar across the two groups of Black defendants…this is a reasonable assumption, as the cases of both groups of Black defendants are similar to each other, and different from those of identifiably-White defendants.”
“Of cases with identifiably-Black (identifiably-White) defendants, 12.6 (12.7), 22.6 (22., and 26.9 (27.1) percent are 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree felonies, respectively. “
Gaps of 0.1 0.2 0.2
There is one quote in which they basically summarize everything that matters (albeit it is mostly a repeat of what we went over above):
The authors conclude that Americans do not discriminate based on race when in the position of a grand jury.
P.S. I think this conclusion is a little disingenuous since they attributed discrimination as a possible explanation for the anti-Black gap between Blacks and Whites, but not for the even larger anti-White gap between Blacks with White names and Blacks with Black names. To me, it appears that while the Black-White gap is entirely due to case differences, it also seems as though jurors discriminate against Whiter names, all else equal–as we can see when they compare Blacks with different racially identifiable names.
Source (Archive)
