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Shared Race/Ethnicity, Court Procedural Justice, and Self-Regulating Beliefs: A Study of Female Offenders

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Thomas Baker ,
Justin T. Pickett ,
Dhara M. Amin ,
Kristin Golden ,
Karla Dhungana ,
Marc Gertz  and
Laura Bedard
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Abstract

Using survey data from a sample of white, black, and Hispanic incarcerated females (N = 554), we examine if the theoretically hypothesized and empirically demonstrated relationship between procedural justice and obligation to obey the law is substantiated among a sample of offenders and explore the impact that sharing the race/ethnicity of the defense attorney and prosecutor in their most recent conviction has on female inmates' perceptions of court procedural justice and their perceived obligation to obey the law. The findings reveal that female offenders who perceive the courts as more procedurally just report a significantly greater obligation to obey the law. In addition, white female inmates who had a white prosecutor were significantly more likely to perceive the courts as procedurally just. Non-whites, though, perceive the courts as more fair if they encountered a minority prosecutor regardless of whether the prosecutor was black or Hispanic.

Type
Penal Law & Society
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 49 , Issue 2 , June 2015 , pp. 433 - 466
Copyright
© 2015 Law and Society Association.

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