Can The Racial Threat Hypothesis Explain the Proliferation of and Racial Disparities in Life Without Parole Sentences?

• In Event: Taking a Second Look at Life without Parole: Where it’s Imposed and Mechanisms for Reform

Abstract

Despite widespread scholarly evidence that increasing the severity of already severe sentences does not reduce crime, the use of parole-ineligible life sentences has expanded dramatically in the past 50 years. In fact, the number of people serving life without parole (LWOP) has continued to grow even as the overall number of prisoners in the US has declined since 2008. What is less well known is what factors have contributed to this continued increase. While some have postulated that the declining use of the death penalty is fueling the increase in LWOP’s usage, there is scant evidence to support this claim. In this paper, we examine another potential cause: racial threat. Specifically, we investigate whether population threat, economic threat, political threat, and/or physical threat to the dominant White population can explain the size of the LWOP population or racial disparities in LWOP’s usage at the state level.

Authors

• Ross Kleinstuber, University of Pittsburgh - Johnstown

• Ellory Dabbs, Penn State Harrisburg