Criminal Justice Policy, Race, and the Dynamics of Admission to Prison

Abstract

Research has long documented racial and economic disparities in imprisonment and the recidivism rate. Despite studies that suggest these disparities cannot be fully explained by differential involvement in crime, scholars have not paid enough attention to how individual characteristics might interact with macro-level factors. This dissertation adds to the literature by examining interactions between individual-level characteristics such as race and history of prior criminal justice contact, and macro-level factors such as criminal justice policies and local racial composition. I structure this dissertation with three chapters that are increasingly focused, in terms of policy and geography. Chapter One extends criminological research investigating the relationship between racial composition and phenomena in the criminal justice sphere. This chapter investigates how county racial composition affects racial disparities in recidivism. The analyses test two competing explanations: racial threat, which would predict a positive relationship between the relative size of the nonwhite population and racial disparities in returns to prison, and political representation, which would predict a negative relationship. I use National Corrections Reporting Program (NCRP) data from 18 states and event history methods to test my hypotheses. The results show that increases in the percent of a county’s Hispanic population are associated with a small increase in the hazard of recidivism for Hispanics and Blacks compared to Whites, which is consistent with the racial threat hypothesis. The results also show that an increase in the non-Hispanic Black population is associated with a small overall decrease in the hazard of recidivism as well as a small decrease for non-Hispanic Blacks compared to Whites, which is consistent with the political representation explanation. Future research including other explanatory variables around political representation would further this study. For example, examining the effect of the racial composition of county-level elected officials or the proportion of adults barred from voting due to a jurisdiction’s felony disenfranchisement laws would be helpful. The second chapter focuses on parole, a period of conditional supervised release in the community following a prison term. Returns to prison while on parole are called revocations, and this can occur in two ways. A parole revocation can result from a new crime conviction, or from a technical violation. Technical violations occur from failing to adhere to conditions that typically would not incur a prison term, such as not completing substance abuse treatment or possessing a firearm. Parole revocation policies vary highly across jurisdictions and include differences regarding the importance of past parole terms (episodes). This chapter advances scholarly understanding of how state differences in parole policy and implementation contribute to differences in the likelihood of experiencing a return to prison. Analyses focus on how the number of parole episodes a person has served interacts with the state they are in to affect the likelihood of experiencing a parole revocation. Comparing jurisdictions in this way can reveal how institutional context and differences in policy shape the outcomes of individuals. It further contributes to the literature by distinguishing between revocations for new crimes and for technical violations, which most studies do not do. Unique parole data for New York and Pennsylvania in the NCRP provide the opportunity to examine revocations in two different institutional contexts. Findings suggest the number of prior parole episodes and the state is significantly associated with differential likelihood and timing of returning to prison and revocation type. Chapter Three focuses further to understand variation within one state, by exploring drug courts in Georgia. Drug court diversion programs offer people charged with drug possession who have a substance abuse issue an alternative to prison in exchange for participating in a court-supervised intensive treatment program. However, these programs come with high fees that participants must shoulder. If people who do not have the ability to pay the participation fees are excluded from accessing this process of remaining out of prison, drug court implementation may lead to an overall increase in the level of economic disadvantage among people sent to prison for drug possession. Thus, while existing research on drug courts focuses on whether they reduce recidivism for participants, I empirically test whether drug courts increase economic inequity by considering who is excluded from participation. I use a difference-in-differences strategy exploiting time variation in the implementation of drug courts across the state to answer this question. I find that on average, the level of disadvantage as measured by educational attainment does not increase significantly among people admitted to prison for drug possession due to drug court implementation. Taken together, the findings of this dissertation suggest policy makers and advocates should consider policy levers that address structural factors and not focus solely on programs aimed at altering individual behavior. Scholars should further examine how macro-level factors contribute to recidivism as well as their interactions with individual characteristics to better understand how we can reduce racial and economic disparities in the prison system as well as the cumulative effect of cycling through prison.