Americans say they believe in equality before the law, then do not apply it. In two large experiments, Democrats and Republicans alike recommended harsher sentences for offenders from the other party, and Black Americans and white Democrats treated white offenders more harshly than Black ones.
The paper, “Unequal Punishment?: Partisan and Racial Biases in Criminal Sentencing”, is by James N. Druckman of the University of Rochester, Rongbo Jin of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Paul Lendway of Stanford University, Trent Ollerenshaw of the University of Houston and Arjun Vishwanath of Boston University. It was posted to SSRN on October 22, 2025.
Six crimes, one changing perpetrator
Study 1 surveyed 2,640 non-Hispanic white Americans in December 2024. Each read six scenarios about a man convicted of a political crime, rising in severity from protesting without a permit through vandalism, assault, arson and assault with a deadly weapon to murder.
The perpetrator’s race (white, Black or unstated) and party (Democrat, Republican or unstated) were randomly varied, signalled through descriptions and names. Respondents chose a sentence on an 11-point scale from community service to more than 20 years, and rated support for a pardon from 0 to 100.
Before the scenarios, respondents rated equality before the law at 89.5 out of 100 on average. Study 2 repeated the design in spring 2025 with 1,337 white and 1,120 Black respondents.
Who gets the harsher sentence
The partisan bias ran both ways. Members of each party gave longer sentences and less support for pardons to out-party offenders than to members of their own party. Most of the effect came from punishing the other side rather than favouring one’s own.
The racial results surprised the authors, who had expected white respondents to favour white perpetrators. White Democrats instead sentenced white perpetrators more harshly and were more willing to pardon Black ones. White Republicans showed no significant racial bias, and Black respondents were more lenient toward Black perpetrators.
The differences add up. For Democrats judging vandalism, a white Democrat had a predicted sentence score of 2.10 and a white Republican 2.61, edging from 1 to 3 days in jail toward 4 to 30 days. A Black Democrat scored 1.65, closer to community service. Support for a pardon rose from 26.6 for the white Republican to 43.8 for the Black Democrat.
Pardons and the ballot box
Two further experiments looked at governors who pardon a murderer. Voters penalised a governor from their own party for such a pardon, but that rarely led them to switch to the other party’s candidate.
The authors offer suggestive evidence that white Democrats’ leniency toward Black offenders reflects beliefs about racism in the criminal justice system. They note that the scenarios involved political crimes and male perpetrators only. Murder, the most severe crime, produced less consistent biases because respondents punished it heavily regardless.
Still, the gap is plain. People who strongly endorse equal treatment in principle shift sentences by party and race when a concrete case is in front of them.
Study Details:
- Title: Unequal Punishment?: Partisan and Racial Biases in Criminal Sentencing
- Authors: Paul Lendway, James N. Druckman, Trent Ollerenshaw, Arjun Vishwanath, Rongbo Jin
- Journal: Stanford working paper (SSRN)
- Publication Date: October 22, 2025
- Link: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5638431