Arrested by Skin Color: Evidence from Siblings and a Nationally Representative Sample

Abstract

Racial disparities in the criminal justice system are striking, but social scientists know little about skin color inequalities within this system. Research demonstrates that racial minorities with darker skin are more disadvantaged than their lighter skinned counterparts. However, scholars often analyze individuals across families without considering that skin color differences also exist within families. I improve on prior studies with an underused, within-family approach using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. I first examine the relationship between skin color and being arrested among a male nationally representative sample. Furthermore, to account for mutual unobserved and observed family characteristics, I use sibling fixed effects models to consider whether skin color disparities in arrest outcomes occur between brothers. Even when analyzing family members, I find that having darker skin remains a significant predictor for being arrested.

Race/Ethnicity, Perceived Skin Color, and the Likelihood of Adult Arrest

“…Moreover, Branigan, Wildeman, Freese, and Kiefe (2017) find that darker skin is not detrimental for arrests among Black men but is for White men. Further, Kizer (2017), also using Add Health, finds that the effect of color, controlling for race, is a significant predictor of arrest among male nonsiblings and sibling pairs across Black, Latino, Native American, and Asian respondents. The inconclusive findings of previous research may be, in part, due to the variation in the racial/ethnic background of samples, the data sets examined, the measurements of color, as well as variation in examining the effect of color between versus within race/ethnicity.…”

“…Moreover, previous work using Add Health data has not taken full advantage of the nationally representative nature of the sample. For example, Kizer (2017) examines nonprobability samples from Add Health (a sample of males and male sibling pairs). Additionally, research does not consistently examine the effect of color within -racial/ethnic groups (e.g., Kizer, 2017); this is particularly problematic because it assumes that the association between skin color and arrest is constant across respondents of all races, which previous research suggests is not the case (e.g., Branigan et al, 2017; White, 2015).…”

“…For example, Kizer (2017) examines nonprobability samples from Add Health (a sample of males and male sibling pairs). Additionally, research does not consistently examine the effect of color within -racial/ethnic groups (e.g., Kizer, 2017); this is particularly problematic because it assumes that the association between skin color and arrest is constant across respondents of all races, which previous research suggests is not the case (e.g., Branigan et al, 2017; White, 2015). Moreover, despite evidence for the existence of skin color stratification among Native Americans and Asians, even studies examining the effect of color on arrest within-racial/ethnic groups (e.g., Branigan et al, 2017; White, 2015) exclude Native Americans and Asians.…”

“…Moreover, despite evidence for the existence of skin color stratification among Native Americans and Asians, even studies examining the effect of color on arrest within-racial/ethnic groups (e.g., Branigan et al, 2017; White, 2015) exclude Native Americans and Asians. Furthermore, despite that King and Johnson (2016) find evidence that the effect of color on sentencing outcomes among Black defendants is nonlinear, research investigating the influence of color on arrest primarily uses ordinal measures that are treated as continuous and are not transformed to account for the possible nonlinear effects of color (e.g., Alcalá & Montoya, 2016; Kizer, 2017; White, 2015), thereby constraining the effect of color to a single, linear estimate. Finally, previous research has examined the association between color and arrest using only basic control variables, and, surprisingly, researchers have not included measures of substance use in their analyses, despite being available in the data examined (e.g., Kizer, 2017; White, 2015).…”

“…However, despite being a multidimensional social construct that encompasses extra-racial phenotypic characteristics (Dixon & Telles, 2017), few studies on racial/ethnic disparities in arrest use indicators of race/ethnicity beyond self-identification. Moreover, although there is a substantial literature showing that, within-racial/ethnic groups, lighter skinned individuals are more advantaged than those with darker skin (Dixon & Telles, 2017; Hochschild & Weaver, 2007; Hunter, 2013; Monk, 2014), few studies examine the relationship between skin color and police contact—of which the evidence is mixed (Alcalá & Montoya, 2016; Barlow & Barlow, 2002; Branigan, Wildeman, Freese, & Kiefe, 2017; Kizer, 2017; White, 2015). Notably, evidence for the association between color and arrest may be inconclusive given the differences between, and limitations of, previous work.…”