IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/anname/v663y2016i1p185-203.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Inequality and Punishment

Author

Listed:
  • Michelle S. Phelps
  • Devah Pager

Abstract

After decades of steady expansion, state prison populations declined in recent years for the first time since 1972. Though the size of the decrease was small, it masks substantial state heterogeneity. This article investigates variation in state-level incarceration rates from 1980 through 2013, examining the factors associated with the rise and decline in prison populations. We find evidence for four key stories in explaining the prison decline: crime, budgets, politics, and inequality. Many of these relationships are consistent across decades, including the role of racial composition, violent crime, and Republican political dominance. In contrast, states’ fiscal capacity and economic inequality became more important after 2000. This research emphasizes the importance of examining changes over time in the correlates of incarceration growth and decline and represents the first effort to systematically understand the recent reversal in the trajectory of incarceration practices in the United States.

Suggested Citation

  • Michelle S. Phelps & Devah Pager, 2016. "Inequality and Punishment," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 663(1), pages 185-203, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:663:y:2016:i:1:p:185-203
    DOI: 10.1177/0002716215596972
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716215596972
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0002716215596972?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Angus Deaton, 2003. "Health, Inequality, and Economic Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(1), pages 113-158, March.
    2. James Honaker & Gary King, 2010. "What to Do about Missing Values in Time‐Series Cross‐Section Data," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(2), pages 561-581, April.
    3. Honaker, James & King, Gary & Blackwell, Matthew, 2011. "Amelia II: A Program for Missing Data," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 45(i07).
    4. John F. Pfaff, 2011. "The Myths and Realities of Correctional Severity: Evidence from the National Corrections Reporting Program on Sentencing Practices," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 13(2), pages 491-531.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shige Song, 2013. "Prenatal malnutrition and subsequent foetal loss risk: Evidence from the 1959-1961 Chinese famine," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 29(26), pages 707-728.
    2. Lara Lopez & Fernando L. Vázquez & Ángela J. Torres & Patricia Otero & Vanessa Blanco & Olga Díaz & Mario Páramo, 2020. "Long-Term Effects of a Cognitive Behavioral Conference Call Intervention on Depression in Non-Professional Caregivers," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(22), pages 1-24, November.
    3. Baltagi, Badi H. & Bresson, Georges & Chaturvedi, Anoop & Lacroix, Guy, 2022. "Robust Dynamic Space-Time Panel Data Models Using ?-Contamination: An Application to Crop Yields and Climate Change," IZA Discussion Papers 15815, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Ouedraogo, Idrissa & Ngoa Tabi, Henri & Atangana Ondoa, Henri & Jiya, Alex Nester, 2022. "Institutional quality and human capital development in Africa," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 46(1).
    5. Klebolte, Kimberly, 2021. "Employment Protection Legislation, Youth Unemployment and the Role of the Educational System," Junior Management Science (JUMS), Junior Management Science e. V., vol. 6(1), pages 60-80.
    6. Badi H. Baltagi & Georges Bresson & Jean-Michel Etienne, 2020. "Growth Empirics: a Bayesian Semiparametric Model With Random Coefficients for a Panel of OECD Countries," Advances in Econometrics, in: Essays in Honor of Cheng Hsiao, volume 41, pages 217-253, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    7. Marcelo Santos & Marta Simões, 2021. "Globalisation, Welfare Models and Social Expenditure in OECD Countries," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 32(5), pages 1063-1088, November.
    8. Mercè Crosas & Gary King & James Honaker & Latanya Sweeney, 2015. "Automating Open Science for Big Data," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 659(1), pages 260-273, May.
    9. Fernando L. Vázquez & Lara López & Ángela J. Torres & Patricia Otero & Vanessa Blanco & Olga Díaz & Mario Páramo, 2020. "Analysis of the Components of a Cognitive-Behavioral Intervention for the prevention of Depression Administered via Conference Call to Nonprofessional Caregivers: A Randomized Controlled Trial," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(6), pages 1-18, March.
    10. Charlinda Santifort-Jordan & Todd Sandler, 2014. "An Empirical Study of Suicide Terrorism: A Global Analysis," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 80(4), pages 981-1001, April.
    11. Caccavale, Oscar Maria & Giuffrida, Valerio, 2020. "The Proteus composite index: Towards a better metric for global food security," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    12. Nyarko, Julian, 2019. "We’ll See You in . . . Court! The lack of arbitration clauses in international commercial contracts," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 6-24.
    13. Tansel, Aysit & Keskin, Halil Ibrahim, 2017. "Education Effects on Days Hospitalized and Days out of Work by Gender: Evidence from Turkey," IZA Discussion Papers 11210, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Tomoki Fujii, 2013. "Geographic decomposition of inequality in health and wealth: evidence from Cambodia," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 11(3), pages 373-392, September.
    15. Silvia Helena Barcellos & Leandro S. Carvalho & Adriana Lleras-Muney, 2014. "Child Gender and Parental Investments in India: Are Boys and Girls Treated Differently?," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 157-189, January.
    16. Tajul Masron & Mduduzi Biyase & Talent Zwane & Thomas Udimal & Frederich Kirsten, 2023. "Ecological footprint and population health outcomes: an analysis of E7 countries," Economics Working Papers edwrg-07-2023, College of Business and Economics, University of Johannesburg, South Africa, revised 2023.
    17. Maria-Dolores, Ramon & Martínez Carrion, José Miguel, 2012. "The comovement between height and some economic development indicators in Spain," UMUFAE Economics Working Papers 26464, DIGITUM. Universidad de Murcia.
    18. Alan B. Krueger, 2002. "Inequality, Too Much of a Good Thing," Working Papers 845, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    19. Young Hwan Choi & Donghwi Jung, 2020. "Development of Cross-Domain Artificial Neural Network to Predict High-Temporal Resolution Pressure Data," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-17, May.
    20. Fraser Summerfield & Livio Di Matteo, 2021. "Influenza Pandemics and Macroeconomic Fluctuations in Recent Economic History," Working Papers 210002, Canadian Centre for Health Economics.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:663:y:2016:i:1:p:185-203. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.