Prosecutorial Background and Charging Decisions

• In Event: Quasi-Experimental Studies in Criminology

Abstract

Recent criminal justice reform efforts have included calls to make prosecutors’ offices more demographically representative of the localities they serve, arguing that a prosecutor’s background may impact how they handle cases. However, there is little empirical evidence demonstrating how prosecutor characteristics such as race or experience affect their decision-making, a critical ingredient to managing diversity within an office. We use data from the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office (DAO) on charging decisions made by 144 assistant district attorneys (ADAs) over ten years to estimate the relationship between ADA characteristics and charging decisions. To account for potential non-random sorting of cases to prosecutors, we compare actual caseloads to benchmark portfolios of cases weighted using machine learning to simultaneously balance hundreds of contextual case factors—including all information observed at the time of case assignment--in a doubly-robust regression framework. We find that initial police charges tend to stick, but prosecutors also exert important influence on charges. Prosecutors with varying demographics and experience charge cases differently: white prosecutors and female prosecutors are more stringent in their charging decisions, while more experienced prosecutors and those who attended a top 14 law school are more lenient. Diversifying charging units may influence how cases are charged, within limits.

Authors

• Paul Heaton, University of Pennsylvania

• Lindsay Graef, University of Pennsylvania

• Greg Ridgeway, University of Pennsylvania