Prosecutorial Discretion, Death Penalty Charging Practices, and Neighborhood Context

• In Event: Capital Punishment Decision-Making and Discretionary Issues

Abstract

Racial and county-level disparities in homicide case outcomes have been well-established (Baldus et al. 1990). Yet, despite criminological research linking race, geography, and lethal violence (Sampson 2012), few studies have investigated racial disparities in the criminal justice processing of homicides at the neighborhood level. The current study attempts to fill this void by utilizing multi-level modeling techniques to disentangle the effects of victim, defendant, and neighborhood variables on death penalty charging practices in a large southern California county. Results inform ongoing debates about the importance of neighborhoods in the (re)production of racial and ethnic inequalities (Sampson 2012).

Author

• Nick Petersen, University of California, Irvine