“It's Hard for Me to Answer That”: Prosecutors’ Race Talk in the Age of Colorblindness

Abstract

Prosecutors are widely acknowledged as playing a pivotal role in determining how criminal cases progress through the justice system. They have been the focus of significant reform efforts, especially in regard to correcting racial disparities. We analyzed 101 interviews with prosecutors in which they discussed their perspectives on racial disparities in the legal system as well as how to address them. Using critical discourse analysis, we identified regular use of five linguistic features: passivization, generic descriptions, claims of ignorance, rhetorical questions, and metacommunication. Together, these linguistic buffering strategies perpetuate colorblind discourses by allowing prosecutors to acknowledge racial disparities in a general and unspecific manner. Prosecutors also shape their own identity in harnessing these strategies. Further, we identified a counter-discourse in prosecutors who instead engaged in highly specific (low buffering) language as an alternative discourse to mainstream prosecutors’ race talk. Prosecutors with defense experience were more likely than those without this experience to engage in counter-discourse. We do not find meaningful differences in the race talk of white prosecutors and prosecutors of color, although female prosecutors were more likely to use buffering strategies than male prosecutors. Together, these results have implications for prosecutors’ hiring decisions, legal training, and the potential for a more global shift in racial ideology away from colorblindness and toward racial consciousness.