The Hamsterdam of Higher Learning: How College Contributes to Punishment Inequality

• In Event: The Context of Higher Education: Punishment, LGBTQ and Women Officers, and Minimally-Surveilled Communities

Abstract

Recent trends in United States’ drug laws and law enforcement practices have inspired much research on punishment inequality and the mass incarceration of illicit drugs users. Existing studies have identified important contributing factors, such as racial discrimination and unequal access to sufficient legal counsel, but have largely ignored college enrollment, a major event at a crucial period in the criminological life-course. This study examines whether attending college and living on campus affect the probability of being arrested for a drug. With the 1997 cohort NLSY data, I model the probability of a drug arrest on demographic characteristics and self-reported drug activity. Using finite mixture modeling, I detect trajectory clusters in arrest probabilities across adolescence and young adulthood, conditioning the trajectories on college enrollment. I find college enrollment and living on campus decrease the risk of being arrested and for a drug charge. Further, I find the effects of college on drug arrest probabilities hold net of the level of drug use. I conclude that campuses and dormitories protect drug using students from punishment, and group differences in college enrollment may be an important, unexamined mechanism contributing to inequalities in drug arrests and incarceration.

Author

• Joshua Fink, Duke University