Déterminants Sociaux des Décisions de Justice Pénale (SoDeJuPe)

Project holders: 

• Roberto Galbiati ( CNRS,Sciences Po)
• Aurélie Ouss ( University of Pennsylvania)

Research team : 

• Thomas Leonard (ENPJJ)
• Phillippe Arnaud (University of Bristol)

Project description : 

How do juror characteristics influence criminal verdicts? We are proposing an interdisciplinary project to make progress on this question. The quantitative part of our research will use quasi-experimental research designs. Our research design exploits random selection of jurors for criminal cases, and differences in professional judges’ careers due to rotations. We will study the effect of jurors’ age, sex, nationality, ethnicity and profession; as well as the career trajectory of professional judges. We will combine with information on defendants. We will use several administrative datasets (criminal records, minutes of trials, summaries of jury trial outcomes, official records on judge assignments). We will complement this work with a series of interviews with professional judges. Our work will shed some light on the socio-economic determinants of verdicts in jury trials—a topic that has received little scholarly attention in France, even though it is central to understand how criminal justice operates, and whether it offers equal treatment to all defendants.