Unequal Punishment?: Equality Before the Law, Partisanship, and Race in the United States

• In Event: Race, Punishment, and Public Opinion

Brief Overview

Despite endorsing equality before the law, Americans often apply it unevenly. Across two experiments, partisans showed leniency toward co-partisans, while racial biases proved more asymmetric, reflecting partisan differences in racial attitudes.

Authors

• Jamie N. Druckman, University of Rochester

• Rongbo Jin, University of Arizona

• Paul Lendway, Stanford University

• Trent Ollerenshaw, University of Houston

• Arjun Vishwanath, Boston University