Explaining the Decline in Incarceration Rates and Racial Disparities in Imprisonment

• In Event: The New Reality of American Imprisonment

Abstract

Follow decades of unprecedented growth in incarceration, the United States has experienced sustained reductions in incarceration. Yet, despite considerable public and scholarly attention to what drove the prison boom, there is conspicuously less research into why incarceration rates are falling. Moreover, the limited research we do have is largely silent on the race- and offense-specific processes underlying the new incarceration trends. This paper fills this gap by examining four key inputs of prison populations: (1) criminal offending, (2) crime reporting, (3), policing, and (4) criminal case processing. Multiple stories emerge to explain the new reality of imprisonment in the United States. For violent offenses and property offenses, the reduction in prison admissions is primarily explained by substantial declines in offending rates, not changes in reporting, policing, or case processing. This is particularly true for Black individuals. For drug crimes, however, notable declines in prison admissions are explained by reductions in policing and case processing, not a decline in drug offending.

Authors

• Michael Light, University of Wisconsin

• Jason Robey, University at Albany, SUNY