Is the Criminal Legal System Becoming More Gender Egalitarian? the Gender Gap in Criminal Court Case Outcomes in Texas, 1993-20151

Researchers have long observed that women are generally treated more leniently than men in the criminal legal system, but the recent growth of women's incarceration in the United States suggests that this gender disparity may be changing. Drawing on over 30 years of administrative data from Texas, we examine change over time in the gender composition of the population involved with the criminal legal system and gender differences in case processing. Results show that while women are less likely than men to be punished at both the adjudicating and sentencing stages, the gender gap has widened over time in conviction and narrowed in incarceration. Furthermore, gender disparities narrow as women gain experience with the system. We situate these results in relation to the salience of gender as a key feature of stratification in other systems of inequality and call for further attention to collateral consequences of the carceral state.