RT Article
T1 Facial profiling: race, physical appearance, and punishment
JF Criminology
VO 55
IS 3
SP 520
OP 547
A1 Johnson, Brian
A1 Choy, Olivia
LA English
YR 2017
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1570660425
AB We investigate the associations among physical appearance, threat perceptions, and criminal punishment. Psychological ideas about impression formation are integrated with criminological perspectives on sentencing to generate and test unique hypotheses about the associations among defendant facial characteristics, subjective evaluations of threatening appearance, and judicial imprisonment decisions. We analyze newly collected data that link booking photos, criminal histories, and sentencing information for more than 1,100 convicted felony defendants. Our findings indicate that Black defendants are perceived to be more threatening in appearance. Other facial characteristics, such as physical attractiveness, baby-faced appearance, facial scars, and visible tattoos, also influence perceptions of threat, as do criminal history scores. Furthermore, some physical appearance characteristics are significantly related to imprisonment decisions, even after controlling for other relevant case characteristics. These and other findings are discussed as they relate to psychological research on impression formation, criminological theories of court actor decision-making, and sociological work on race and punishment.
K1 Appearance
K1 Race
K1 Stereotypes
K1 Disparity
K1 Sentencing
K1 Punishment
K1 Bestrafung
K1 Facial profiling
DO 10.1111/1745-9125.12143