Racial and Class Inequality in US Incarceration in the Early Twenty-First Century

Abstract The relative importance of racial and class inequality in incarceration the United States has recently become subject much debate. In this paper, we seek to give debate a stronger empirical foundation. First, update previous research on people’s likelihood being imprisoned. Then, examine risk having family member imprisoned or living high-imprisonment neighborhood. We find that prison admissions fallen twenty-first century, while surged. However, recent years, Black people with high levels education income were more likely than white low experience imprisonment live neighborhood rate. These seemingly contradictory conclusions can be reconciled by fact enduring structures domination have made boundaries among permeable they are people. Imprisonment is increasingly reserved for poor. But because Americans disproportionately connected poor through their families neighborhoods, exceeds indirect experiences imprisonment.