DOES RACE AND GENDER MATTER? AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF CRIMINAL SENTENCING IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

This thesis examines the main determinants of Imprisonment Sentence Length of two financial offences—Criminal Breach of Trust, and Cheating—to investigate whether the race and gender of an accused affects the decision of the Courts. Drawing from the largest online legal case database in Singapore—Lawnet—I construct two samples from reported cases, consisting of 76 Criminal Breach of Trust and 60 Cheating cases. 1 use Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regressions, and find that Imprisonment Sentence Length is positively correlated with both the Number of Charges and Quantum Misappropriated. These positive correlations are statistically significant in both Criminal Breach of Trust and Cheating. I further find that legal factors such as mitigating and aggravating factors play a significant role in the Court's decision. These results imply that the Courts in Singapore are generally fair and just, and that race and gender do not affect Sentencing in Singapore.