Law and Gender Commons^™

Sentencing Inequality Versus Sentencing Injustice, Melanie D. Wilson

Scholarly Articles

Women lag behind men in pay for equal work and in positions of prestigious employment, such as chief executive officers at Fortune 500 companies and presidents of colleges and universities. Women also suffer conscious and subconscious negative bias from both men and women in positions to evaluate an applicant's capabilities and potential, making it less likely that an employer or mentor will choose a woman instead of a man. In contrast to these and many other contexts, our federal criminal justice system regularly favors women over men. Empirical studies show that this lenient treatment begins with prosecutors and law enforcement …