Judges aren't just born biased—they 'catch' it from their colleagues or from seeing social unrest early in their careers.
SSRN · March 17, 2026 · 6323098
The Takeaway
Tracking judges in India revealed that bias is contagious; working with biased colleagues can reduce acquittal rates for minority groups for over a year. However, the study also found a 'cure': the religious bias typically triggered by experiencing a riot is completely neutralized if the judge works on a diverse team with colleagues of different religions during the same period.
From the abstract
How does judicial bias arise and persist in the legal system? We trace the lifecycle of judicial bias in India's criminal courts, leveraging the quasi-random assignment of judges to courts and cases. We first document substantial variation in bias: within the same court, assigning a same-religion defendant from a judge at the 25th to 75th percentile of bias increases acquittal probability by 7.5 percentage points, 45% of the mean acquittal rate. We then examine how different triggers across judg