Law, Social Standing and Racial Disparities in Imprisonment

A central and recurring concern in the sociology of criminal law is racial disparity in imprisonment—blacks are much more likely than whites to be imprisoned for crimes. Sociological theories disagree over the sources of imprisonment disparity. Prior research has ignored the social, economic, and legal characteristics of states and regions of the country that may contribute to disparity. The present study finds differences in the social standing of blacks relative to whites that explain substantial and statistically significant variation in racial disparity in imprisonment across states after racial differences in involvement in crime are controlled. Blacks are more likely than whites to be imprisoned in states where the black population is a small percentage of the total population and predominantly urban. The implications of these findings for a structural theory of punishment are discussed.