A Historical Examination of the Relationship between Political Factors and State-Level Incarceration Practices

• In Event: Mass Incarceration: Practices, Pre-Trial Detention, and Parole

Abstract

Even though recent historians and social scientists have argued that penal punishments have been shaped by political considerations throughout history, empirical research on this relationship has primarily been restricted to the last third of the 20th century. In order to expand the temporal scope used to examine incarceration practices, this study assesses whether three recent political perspectives are able to account for changes in incarceration rates at the state level from 1930 to 2010. The findings from this study indicate that the predictive power of these political variables is not restricted to the latter portion of the 20th century.

Author

• Ethan Amidon, Missouri State University