Legitimacy, Punitiveness, and the Election of Prosecutors

• In Event: 50212 - Legitimacy, Punishment, and Language Dynamics in the Law

Abstract

We test the influence of democratic elections of Attorney Generals (AGs) and District Attorneys (DAs) in the punitiveness and legitimacy of states’ criminal justice systems. Initially, we ran an experiment where participants were exposed to criminal cases with appointed-by-the-governor and elected prosecutors and asked about their perceptions. We identified a positive correlation between perceptions of fairness and elected prosecutors, which suggests that the legitimacy of the criminal justice system is greater when prosecutors are elected by vote instead of appointed by public authorities. In addition, we construct an index of prosecutors’ democratic legitimacy per state using information on how AGs and DAs are appointed and data we collected on AGs races from 2008 to 2018. We examine whether variations in this index correlate with variations in states’ incarceration rates and death penalty rates. Our findings indicate that there is a correlation between increases in the index and lesser incarceration and death penalty rates. Overall, we found out that increased civic participation in prosecutorial activity might have positive influence on the legitimacy of justice systems and be consistent with efforts in reducing their punitiveness.

Authors

• Ángela Zorro Medina, University of Chicago

• Fernando Bracaccini

• Carlos De la Rossa Xochitiotzi