Bilevel disparities in court dispositions for intimate assault

Using data on cases of intimate assault, we offer a relatively rare examination of disparities in court dispositions across multiple stages of case processing. In this context we introduce the theoretical and empirical relevance of considering the characteristics of defendants' neighborhoods as possible extralegal influences on disposition severity. Bilevel analyses of 2,948 males arrested for misdemeanor assaults on intimates in Cincinnati reveal significant disparities based on neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES) in decisions related to charging, full prosecution, conviction, and incarceration, even when adjusting for compositional differences in defendant's race and SES across neighborhoods. Implications are discussed for the broader literature on extralegal disparities.