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Crime and Punishment: the Impact of Skin Color and Socioeconomic Status of Defendants and Victims in Jury Trials in Brazil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2016

Rogério Ferreira da Silva  and
Marcus Eugênio Oliveira Lima
Rogério Ferreira da Silva*
Affiliation:
Promotoria de Justiça do Estado de Sergipe (Brazil)
Marcus Eugênio Oliveira Lima
Affiliation:
Universidade Federal de Sergipe (Brazil)
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Marcus Eugênio Oliveira Lima. Universidade Federal de Sergipe – Psicologia. 49100–000. São Cristovão (Brazil). E-mail: marcuseolima@gmail.com
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Abstract

Social judgments are often influenced by racism. Voluntary crimes against life, and in particular the crime of homicide, may be the most critical situations of the impact of racism in social judgments. We analyzed 114 homicide trials conducted by the 1st Jury Court, in a Brazilian judicial capital, concluded between 2003 and 2007, for the purpose of investigating the effects of skin color and the socioeconomic status of the defendant and the victim of homicides in the jury trial court’s decision. The results indicate that the social and economic profile of defendants and victims of homicide is identical. They are almost all poor (more than 70%), with low education (more than 73%) and frequently non-Whites (more than 88%). We found that judges assign longer sentences to black (β = .34, p = .01) and poor defendants (β = .23, p < .05). We even verified that the poorer the defendant, the higher was the corresponding conviction rate (Wald’s Test = 5.90, p < .05). The results are discussed based on theories of social psychology and criminological sociology, which consider the relationship between skin color and socioeconomic status in social judgments and in discrimination.

Keywords

homicidejudgmentskin colorsocioeconomic status
Type
Research Article
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 19 , 2016 , E77
Copyright
Copyright © Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos de Madrid 2016 

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