Has anyone ever studied whether less attractive people are more likely to get convicted of a crime after an arrest?
Mugshots should be in the public record and it ought to be possible to evaluate attractiveness by presenting them to a sample of people in a hot-or-not style website.
Has this been done?
There have been many studies showing that mock jurors (and in some studies, real jurors) are biased towards attractive criminal defendants in terms of guilt/innocence and lenience in sentencing. Just google “attractiveness criminal sentencing” and you’ll see a bunch. Conversely, defendants whose victims are seen as attractive by mock and real juries tend to get longer sentences. If I were going to devise a test of real world defendants, i don’t know that I’d go by mugshots - some defendants have really unflattering mugshots due to extreme intoxication/being beat up/bad hair day/etcetera, but present really well once in court. Also, acquittals may result in expungements of arrest records and mugshots, so you’re missing a good bit of relevant data.
ETA: Here’s an example:
“According to a recent study by Justin J. Gunnell ’05 law ’08 and Prof. Stephen J. Ceci, human ecology and the Helen L. Carr Professor of Developmental Psychology, more attractive defendants in court are less likely to be found guilty than less attractive ones. If there are damages, then more attractive people tend to receive higher rewards and in criminal cases, better-looking defendants receive lower sentences. This phenomenon has been proven by more than 30 studies conducted over the past 60 to 70 years, according to Gunnell.”
Fascinating. Thank you!