NCJ Number
189944
Journal
Criminology Volume: 39 Issue: 3 Dated: August 2001 Pages: 615-654
Date Published
August 2001
Length
40 pages
Annotation
This study extended earlier analyses of the factors that explain differences among the U.S. States in imprisonment rates by demonstrating the importance of State culture and political arrangements to the explanation of imprisonment rates as well as growth in those rates for the years 1971-1991.
Abstract
The imprisonment rate was measured as the total number of prisoners in a State's jurisdiction serving sentences of a year or more per 100,000 population. The racial composition of a State was measured by the percentage of Black males in the State's population. In the absence of data for the political affiliations of State prosecutors and judges, the study examined the impact of the political affiliation of the governor in office in each decade year. The measure of party competition was based on the percentage of the vote received by a winning candidate in congressional districts, the winning candidate's margin of victory, whether the seat was safe, and whether it was contested. To determine the percentages of each State's population that were liberal, moderate, or conservative, Wright et al. (1985) pooled data from 51 CBS News-New York Times polls taken from 1974 to 1982, obtaining a total sample of over 76,000 respondents. To assess the influence of the independent variables on imprisonment rates, the study estimated a number of models. Researchers confirmed earlier work which indicated that imprisonment rates were responsive to crime rates, to a State's racial composition, and to its economic circumstances. The study also showed the importance of expanding the framework for theorizing imprisonment by showing that a State's religious and political culture represented a context for penological decision making that could not be neglected, and that punishment policy was part of a larger constellation of policies united by a consistent logic. The study also showed the methodological gain that came from examining change empirically. 3 tables and 152 references