Let My People Go? Ethnic Bias of Jewish and Arab Judges in Pretrial Detention Decisions in Israel

Abstract

This is the first study to assess the effect of suspects' ethnic identity on pre-trial detention decisions across the ethnic identity of the deciding judges. Concentrating on the early-stage decisions in the criminal process, controlling for the state's position and for the ethnicity of the judges, and excluding agreements, allows us to better control of intervening factors, and for evaluating competing explanations of the findings under assumptions of incomplete information. The multi-level analyses draw on a sample of pretrial detention decisions in three Israeli magistrate courts. We find that the ethnicity of suspects carries a significantly different effect between Arab and Jewish judges. When the judge is Jewish, a Jewish defendant has significantly higher chances of being released on bail than a similarly situated Arab suspect. Yet, while an average inverse bias was found for Arab Judges, the ethnic identity of the defendant was not found to have a significant effect in this condition. The implications of the findings, as well as the merit of concentrating on early-stage judicial decisions in the study of judicial ethnic bias are discussed.