NCJ Number
213219
Journal
European Journal of Criminology Volume: 3 Issue: 1 Dated: January 2006 Pages: 69-84
Date Published
January 2006
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This Israeli study examined whether the nationalities of the judges, the convicted offenders, and the victims were related to whether those who had committed violent offenses were sentenced to prison in Israel.
Abstract
Findings showed that Arabs were more likely than Jews to receive prison sentences, and Arab judges were more likely than Jewish judges to sentence offenders to prison. The nationality of the victim was related to receiving a prison sentence only in cases tried by Arab judges. When the offender was Arab and the victim was Jewish, an Arab judge was more likely to issue a prison sentence than when the victim was an Arab. The findings thus suggest that in Israeli society, majority or minority ethnic status has a key impact on judicial sentencing conduct. The study involved an analysis of all of the available criminal court files (n=3,229) for the years 1985-2000 in the 2 district courts in northern Israel (1 in Haifa and 1 in Nazareth). Each file contained details about the defendant and information about the judge, the victim, the prosecutor, and the outcome of the trial. The study included only cases in which defendants were charged with violent offenses. The interaction of variables was determined by logistic regression analysis. 4 tables and 39 references