Racial Disparities in Arrests: A Race Specific Model Explaining Arrest Rates Across Black and White Young Adults

Abstract

Three theories attempt to explain the racial disparities in arrest between White and Black Americans: Differential Involvement Hypothesis, Differential Selection and Processing Hypothesis, and Social Disorganization Theory. We tested these hypotheses simultaneously in a multiple-group longitudinal panel model with the ADD Health dataset (Black n = 2459, White n = 7403). After controlling for contextual and behavioral factors, we still found Black young adults were arrested seven times more often than their White counterparts. To maintain cultural competence, it is imperative for clinicians to be aware of these disparities when working with families of different races in order to adjust treatment accordingly, but advocacy for greater systemic change may be more important for some communities than therapy alone.

The Legacy of Slavery and Contemporary Racial Disparities in Arrest Rates

“…Of the new measures added, only the Black-White poverty ratio remains significant. This positive association is in line with previous studies suggesting greater structural disadvantages facing minorities partially explain racial inequalities in formal social control (Cureton 2000; Gase et al 2016; Kirk 2008; LaFree et al 2010; Parker et al 2005; Schleiden et al 2020). In sum, results presented in Table 2 demonstrate slavery is directly associated with racial disparities in arrests for violent offenses.…”

“…Extant scholarship also points to racial disparities in educational and economic disadvantage as potential sources of racial disparities in arrest rates (LaFree et al 2010;Ousey and Lee 2008;Parker et al 2005). Criminological studies examining the role of concentrated minority disadvantage in generating racial disparities in arrest rates mention poverty specifically as an important manifestation of structural disadvantage (Kirk 2008;LaFree et al 2010;Parker et al 2005;Schleiden et al 2020). Legacy of slavery scholarship finds a positive association between slavery and Black-White disparities in poverty (Curtis and O'Connell 2017;O'Connell 2012O'Connell , 2020O'Connell et al 2020) and demonstrates slavery's negative consequences for Black educational outcomes (Bertocchi and Dimico 2012;Reece and O'Connell 2016).…”

Childhood family and neighbourhood socio‐economic status, psychopathy, and adult criminal behaviour

“…It is possible that children from high and low SES families and neighbourhoods engage in similar levels of criminal behaviour, but that those with low SES backgrounds are more likely to get caught and/or are more likely to be arrested. Some research has shown that police officers have substantial discretion, which leads to disparities in arrests based on demographic characteristics (Campbell et al, 2021; Gaston, 2019; Schleiden et al, 2020). Indeed, police officers are more likely to make arrests in low SES neighbourhoods than in high SES neighbourhoods (Lum, 2011).…”

Getting under the skin: Physiological stress and witnessing paternal arrest in young children with incarcerated fathers

“…However, the distribution of these experiences is not equal. Black adults are arrested at rates seven times that of their White counterparts (Schleiden et al, 2020), and arrests involving Black and Hispanic individuals are 50% more likely to involve the use of force (Fryer, 2019). While no two arrests or interactions with law enforcement are the same, what holds true is how this initial phase of justice involvement can lead to the removal of an individual from the community, and in the case of some fathers, from children's lives.…”