Impact of Defendant and Victim Ethnicity and Juror Gender on Punitive Judgments in a Mock Rape Case

Public perceptions of crime and tendencies in punitive judgment can influence the criminal justice process. Negative attitudes, particularly fear and prejudice towards social minorities, may result in harsher punitive judgments and actual biased punishments. This study conducted a randomized scenario experiment with 300 adult men and women in South Korea to examine the independent and interaction effects of defendant and victim ethnicity and participants’ gender on punitive judgments(guilt, probability of guilt, and sentencing) in a mock rape case. The results revealed significant differences in guilt and probability of guilt judgments, although not in sentencing judgments. Participants perceived a Korean-Chinese male defendants as more likely to be guilty than a Korean male defendant. Similarly, defendants were judged more likely to be guilty when the victim was a Korean-Chinese woman compared to a Korean woman. Gender differences among participants were also found: female participants tended to find the defendant guilty regardless of ethnicity, especially when the victim was Korean, whereas male participants showed a higher likelihood of finding the defendant guilty when the victim was Korean-Chinese. The study concludes with a discussion of its theoretical implications and methodological limitations.