State, Race, Cohort: Inequalities in the Lifetime Risk of Imprisonment

• In Event: Racial Disparities in Criminal Punishment

Abstract

Research on prisons in the life course focuses almost exclusively on estimating national imprisonment risks. However, states vary considerably in their use of imprisonment. This article uses a novel strategy to estimate the state-specific risk of imprisonment for multiple cohorts in 48 states. The findings demonstrate that substantial inequalities in imprisonment risk between adults living in different states. In the most punitive states, the risk of imprisonment is 5 to 16 times larger compared to the least punitive state. Comparing across state, race, and cohort demonstrates the starkest inequalities, as Black men born in 1983 in Iowa were more than 63 times more likely to be incarcerated than White men born in Massachusetts in 2000. State inequalities also shift our understanding of the most common life course trajectories for Black men. In most states Black men born in 1983 were more likely to be imprisoned than graduate college by age 35. However, in ten states the reverse was true, and a cohort of Black men raised during the mass incarceration era were more likely to graduate college than be imprisoned by age 35. Overall, this article reorients the understanding of imprisonment risks as fundamentally driven by where people live.

Author

• Jason Robey, University at Albany, SUNY