Exploring gender disparities in prosecutorial and judicial decision-making in the global south: evidence from Argentina

Objectives: This study examines gender disparities in criminal cases from the earliest stages of prosecutorial decision-making in Argentina. Methods: The data for this study are all alleged crimes reported to prosecutors in La Pampa, Argentina between January 2016 and July 2019 that had ended by August 2019. Logistic and multinomial regression models with judicial district-by-year fixed effects are used to estimate the probability of case-ending and other important decisions for counts with women as suspects vis-à-vis men. Results: The results show that prosecutors are more likely to decline investigating crime reports with women as suspects. Once accepted for investigation, counts with women are also more likely to be dismissed and less likely to receive a conviction. Gender disparities also accumulate across decisions and are reflected in faster adjudications for women. The gender gap in disposition shrinks considerably for some women, most notably those with a prior conviction, providing some evidence of selective leniency. Conclusions: This study shows that women are treated more leniently than men, from the earliest prosecutorial decisions and across major outcomes in a Global South country. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of theoretical frameworks developed in the Global North.