This paper studies racial in-group disparities in Wisconsin, which has one of the highest Black-to-White incarceration rates among all U.S. states. The analysis is motivated by a model in which a judge may want to incarcerate more due to three …

Social divides extend beyond race and gender, but less visible dimensions of social background are rarely recorded in data. We study whether judges treat defendants differently when they are socially closer to them. We measure social proximity as the …