By C1 Staff
A new study says an inmate’s face – and how trustworthy it looks – can have an effect on the severity of the sentence he or she receives.
PsychCentral reports that a new study published in the Psychological Science journal states that inmates whose faces were rated low for trustworthiness were more likely to receive the death sentence than inmates who were perceived as more trustworthy, even when inmates were later cleared of the crime.
The researchers used photos of 371 males on death row in Florida; 226 of the inmates were white, 145 were black, and all were convicted of first-degree murder. All photos were converted to gray scale to minimize variations. Then an online panel of 208 American adults were asked to review the photos and rate them on trustworthiness using a scale from one (not trustworthy) to eight (very trusthworthy). The reviewers also considered photos of inmates who had been convicted on murder charges but received a life sentence.
The raters did not know what sentence an inmate had received, or even if the photos were of inmates at all. Findings showed that inmates who had received the death penalty were often perceived as less trustworthy than those sentenced to live in prison.
Inmates in both groups had committed crimes that were equally severe; neither sentence would have allowed for the inmates to return to society, and as such, the motivation to protect society could not explain the harsher punishments consistently given to less trustworthy-looking inmates.
“Any effect of facial trustworthiness, then, seems like it would have to come from a premium in wanting to punish people who simply look less trustworthy,” the study concluded.
A follow-up study showed the connection between perceived trustworthiness and sentencing emerged even when participants studied photos of inmates who had been sentenced but were actually innocent and later exonerated.