Race and the War on Crime: The Sociopolitical Determinants of Municipal Police Expenditures in 90 non-Southern U.S. Cities

Jackson, Pamela Irving; Carroll, Leo

doi:10.2307/2095061

Cited by 223 publications

(180 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Consistent with this reasoning, a fairly sizable body of research reports an association between the size of the black population and formal social control in the United States (e.g. Jackson and Carroll, 1981;Jackson, 1986Jackson, , 1989Jacobs, 1979;Jacobs and Carmichael 2002;Liska and Chamlin 1984). Recent research reports that states' imprisonment rates increase as the size of the black population grows, even after crime rates are controlled (Beckett and Western, 2001;Greenberg and West, 2001;Jacobs and Carmichael, 2001).…”

Section: Class Conflict Racial Threat and Punishment Of Disadvantagmentioning

confidence: 93%

Partisan Politics, Electoral Competition and Imprisonment: An Analysis of States Over Time*

2005

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The now well‐documented explosion in prison populations over the last 30 years has spurred significant attention in the literature. Early research focused primarily on economic explanations. More recently it has focused on political explanations of prison growth. Here we extend research on political explanations of imprisonment by drawing on the literature on state politics and public policy. We argue that the effect of partisan politics on punishment is conditional on how much electoral competition legislators face. We test this hypothesis using annual state level data on imprisonment from 1978 to 1996. Our findings show that the effect of Republican state legislative strength on prison admissions depends on time and the level of competition in state legislative elections. We argue that these findings suggest the need for a more nuanced understanding of the link between partisan U.S. politics and imprisonment.

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Section: Class Conflict Racial Threat and Punishment Of Disadvantagmentioning

confidence: 93%

Partisan Politics, Electoral Competition and Imprisonment: An Analysis of States Over Time*

2005

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“…Theory suggests that whites will make greater demands for punitive measures after expansions in black presence. Yet when such minority populations reach a threshold and their political influence becomes sufficient, the positive relationship between minority presence and punitive responses should become negative (Jackson and Carroll 1981) The links between these events, however, may be more complex. Historical outcomes can be contingent on the joint appearance of more than one set of conditions that must be present in sufficient strength.…”

Section: MI In No Ormentioning

confidence: 99%

Vigilantism, Current Racial Threat, and Death Sentences

2005

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Capital punishment is the most severe punishment, yet little is known about the social conditions that lead to death sentences. Racial threat explanations imply that this sanction will be imposed more often in jurisdictions with larger minority populations, but some scholars suggest that a tradition of vigilante violence leads to increased death sentences. This study tests the combined explanatory power of both accounts by assessing statistical interactions between past lynchings and the recent percentage of African Americans after political conditions and other plausible effects are held constant. Findings from count models based on different samples, data, and estimators suggest that racial threat and lynchings combine to produce increased death sentences, but the presence of liberal political values explains the absence of death sentences. These findings both confirm and refine the political version of conflict theory because they suggest that the effects of current racial threat and past vigilantism largely directed against newly freed slaves jointly contribute to current lethal but legal reactions to racial threat.

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“…Moreover, some argue that where minority populations are small, relatively small increases in this population may be more likely to be perceived as "threatening" to the status quo than similar increases in areas with larger minority populations. Once the minority group attains sufficient numerical strength to become a political force, increases in this population have much less impact (Jackson and Carroll 1981). Such a curvilinear relationship makes sense from the politics of social order perspective:…”

Section: Economic and Racial Threatmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Jackson and Carroll 1981;Jacobs, Carmichael, and Kent 2005;Liska 1992 Despite the intuitive appeal of thinking that corrections expenditures naturally increase in response to increases in crime, the link may not be automatic. Expecting increases in corrections spending as a result of increases in crime is consistent with a rational choice view of crime, where increasing funds for punishment translates into more punishment, thus deterring individuals from crime (see Jacobs and Carmichael 2001: 65).…”

Section: Economic and Racial Threatmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Bigger Piece of the Pie? State Corrections Spending and the Politics of Social Order

Stucky

Heimer

Lang

2007

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency

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The dramatic increase in American state prison populations over the last three decades has sparked considerable research interest. Empirical research has most often examined changes in prison admissions or populations. Few studies, however, have considered another important indicator of punishment-shifts over time in state corrections budgets. This study examines variation in annual, state-level corrections expenditures as a proportion of state total expenditures from 1980 to 1998. We draw together existing theoretical arguments about criminal punishment under a common rubric that we call a "politics of social order perspective" which focuses on state responsibility for the maintenance of social order and the need for state officials to maintain office through popular election. From this view, partisan politics, economic and racial threat, citizen preferences, fiscal considerations, policy priorities, and crime are important explanations of corrections spending because they affect strategies for maintaining social order, garnering votes and maintaining political office. Our findings generally support this perspective. Specifically, partisan politics, racial threat, state economic prosperity, and budgetary priorities all play a role in determining the proportion of state expenditures devoted to corrections over time.

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Race and the War on Crime: The Sociopolitical Determinants of Municipal Police Expenditures in 90 non-Southern U.S. Cities

Cited by 223 publications

References 27 publications

Partisan Politics, Electoral Competition and Imprisonment: An Analysis of States Over Time*

Partisan Politics, Electoral Competition and Imprisonment: An Analysis of States Over Time*

Vigilantism, Current Racial Threat, and Death Sentences

A Bigger Piece of the Pie? State Corrections Spending and the Politics of Social Order

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