Race and gender: An examination of the models that explain evaluations of the court system for differences

Abstract

A growing body of research examines the relationship between procedural justice and discrimination and evaluations of the courts for different races/ethnicities and genders. This article uses a national probability sample to make this examination. The results show that fairness of treatment and the perception of performance are important to individuals in their evaluation of the courts. In the subsample analysis, the fairness of treatment by the courts is important to the evaluation of the courts. Further, z‐tests show that this measure impacts the evaluation of the courts equally for whites, blacks, Hispanics, males, and females. In addition, the study shows that fairness of treatment has about the same level of impact on evaluations of the courts when the subsample analysis is stratified by a combination of race/ethnicity and gender.