Comparing Apples to Oranges: Differences in Women’s and Men’s Incarceration and Sentencing Outcomes

Kristin Butcher, Kyung H. Park and Anne Piehl

Journal of Labor Economics, 2017, vol. 35, issue S1, S201 - S234

Abstract: Using detailed administrative records, we find that, on average, women receive lighter sentences in comparison with men along both extensive and intensive margins. Using parametric and semiparametric decomposition methods, roughly 30% of the gender differences in incarceration cannot be explained by the observed criminal characteristics of offense and offender. We also find evidence of considerable heterogeneity across judges in their treatment of female and male offenders. There is little evidence, however, that tastes for gender discrimination are driving the mean gender disparity or the variance in treatment between judges.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/691276 (application/pdf)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/691276 (text/html)
Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

Related works:
Working Paper: Comparing Apples to Oranges: Differences in Women’s and Men’s Incarceration and Sentencing Outcomes (2017)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucp:jlabec:doi:10.1086/691276

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Labor Economics from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().