Class in the Courtroom: The Impact of Socioeconomic Status on Sentencing Decisions through the Stereotype Content Model

• In Event: Sentencing 2. Legal and Extra-Legal Considerations in Judicial Decisonmaking

Abstract

A vast body of research in criminology, psychology, and law has extensively demonstrated that the identity features of the participants of legal proceedings (i.e., mainly defendants and judges) play a significant role in shaping criminal judgments, particularly sentencing decisions. Research in this domain mainly examined the effects of gender and race on criminal justice judgments and disparate outcomes. Surprisingly, the potential influence of offenders' socioeconomic status (SES) has been largely overlooked. The current novel study addresses this gap by exploring whether offenders' SES impacts laypeople's sentencing decisions. Employing the stereotype content model (Fiske et al., 2002), the study also explores how stereotypes about people from various SES backgrounds (poor and middle-class) influence and explain these decisions through perceptions of warmth (e.g., nice, friendly, etc.) and competence. Participants (n=133) were randomly assigned to read a vignette depicting a crime committed by either a poor or middle-class offender and were then asked about their sentencing decisions. They were also asked to rate their perceptions of the offender's warmth and competence. Results indicate that offenders' SES impacted sentencing decisions, such that the poor offender received significantly harsher sentences than the middle-class offender. The perceived warmth of the offender mediated the relationship between SES and sentencing decisions; the poor offender was seen as less warm (i.e., less nice, unfriendly), leading to harsher sentences. The results emphasize the need for criminological research to examine further ways in which offenders' SES, not only race and gender, impacts decision-making and leads to biases and discrimination. It also underscores the need to implement psychological models in criminological research to understand where those biases stem from. Explanations and implications of these findings to existing research about bias in sentencing decisions will be discussed.

Authors

• Ronen Shehman, University of Haifa

• Avital Mentovich, University of Haifa

• Orna Rabinovich-Einy, Faculty of Law, University of Haifa