Examining Plea Bargaining and Charge Reduction in Three U.S. Federal District Courts

The vast majority of criminal cases are settled through guilty pleas, instead of jury trials, in the United States. While plea bargaining and charge reductions have a tremendous impact on sentencing outcomes, empirical research on plea bargaining and charge reduction is rare, especially at the federal level due to limited data availability. With a unique dataset on charging and sentencing decisions in three federal District Courts, this dissertation seeks to investigate the predictors of charge reduction decisions and the impact of plea bargaining on sentencing outcome, with a particular focus on disparities in prosecutorial discretion based on defendants’ race/ethnicity, gender, age and employment status.