The Disproportionate Punishment of Black Inmates in North Carolina State Prisons: 1980-2016

• In Event: 2465 - Exploring the Carceral Continuum

Abstract

The considerable scholarship on the ways that racial and socioeconomic inequality predicts and follows incarceration has not been matched by research on confinement itself. I use publicly available inmate and disciplinary infraction data sets from North Carolina’s state prisons to test whether there are different disciplinary infraction rates for black and white inmates over time, and whether black and white inmates receive the same punishments for the same infractions. I find that black male and female inmates receive more disciplinary infractions than their white counterparts beginning in 1995, and that these differences persist after relevant covariates are included in a regression model. Though black male inmates are less likely to be found guilty of an infraction than white male inmates, black males are more likely to be assigned to segregated housing if they are found guilty. Black males are also assigned to longer stays in segregated housing, conditional on receiving segregated housing as a punishment for a disciplinary infraction. These results indicate that correctional officers may consider racial stereotypes when determining inmates’ deservingness for institutional punishment, meaning that periods of confinement could serve to reinforce racial hierarchies in criminal justice institutions.

Author

• Bridget Brew, Cornell University