A Life Course Analysis of Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Arrest

• In Event: Additional Long-term Studies from PHDCN+ (Panel 2 of 2)

Abstract

Theories of racial and ethnic disparities in both criminal behavior and in criminal justice contact are overwhelmingly cross-sectional or static in nature. We argue that a fuller understanding of between-group racial inequalities requires accounting for their historical and dynamic origins. Differences in early life disadvantages set in motion processes of cumulative disadvantage that manifest as lifelong disparities in patterns of arrest. We test this life course perspective by drawing on data on over 1,000 individuals from birth to age 40, as part of a recent extension of the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN+).

Authors

• Roland Neil, University of Pennsylvania

• Robert J. Sampson, Harvard University