596972ANN The Annals of the American AcademyInequality and Punishment

research-article2015

After decades of steady expansion, state prison popula-

tions declined in recent years for the first time since 1972.
Though the size of the decrease was small, it masks sub-
stantial state heterogeneity. This article investigates varia-
tion in state-level incarceration rates from 1980 through
2013, examining the factors associated with the rise and
decline in prison populations. We find evidence for four
key stories in explaining the prison decline: crime, budg-
ets, politics, and inequality. Many of these relationships
are consistent across decades, including the role of racial
Inequality and composition, violent crime, and Republican political
dominance. In contrast, states’ fiscal capacity and eco-
Punishment: A nomic inequality became more important after 2000. This
research emphasizes the importance of examining changes

Turning Point over time in the correlates of incarceration growth and

decline and represents the first effort to systematically
understand the recent reversal in the trajectory of incar-
for Mass ceration practices in the United States.

Incarceration? Keywords: mass incarceration; prisons; decarcera-

tion; inequality

A wealth of scholarship now documents the

spectacular rise in incarceration in the
United States over the past four decades.
By
Michelle S. Phelps During this time, incarceration rates increased
and more than fivefold, leaving the United States
Devah Pager with the highest rate of incarceration in the
world (Lacey 2008). The consequences of this
dramatic rise in the prison population have yet
to receive a full accounting, but a large body of

Michelle S. Phelps is an assistant professor in sociology

at the University of Minnesota and is affiliated with the
University of Minnesota Law School and Minnesota
Population Center. Her research has been published in
Law and Society Review, Law and Policy, and
Theoretical Criminology.
Devah Pager is a professor of sociology and public policy
at Harvard University. Her research focuses on racial
inequality in labor markets and the criminal justice sys-
tem. Her 2007 book, Marked: Race, Crime, and Finding
Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration, examines the labor
market barriers facing those recently released from prison.
Pager was adopted into the Hauser clan in 1998 and has
been forever since blessed by their wisdom, kindness, and
dogged commitment to getting the science right.
Correspondence: phelps@umn.edu
DOI: 10.1177/0002716215596972

ANNALS, AAPSS, 663, January 2016 185

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186 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

research now points to the serious implications of mass incarceration for social,
economic, and political inequality (National Research Council 2014). Individuals
who have been incarcerated are less likely to stay connected to their families
(Lopoo and Western 2005), face increased barriers to finding work (Pager 2007),
and are often prohibited from political participation (Manza and Uggen 2006). In
addition, mass incarceration further disadvantages vulnerable communities
(Clear 2007) and children growing up with imprisoned parents (Wakefield and
Wildeman 2013). With roughly one in ten men (and fully one in three black men)
expected to serve time in prison during their lifetime (Bureau of Justice Statistics
2003), the criminal justice system has become a major stratifying institution in
contemporary America.
And yet, even as scholars continue to grapple with the causes and conse-
quences of mass incarceration, a new pattern has crept into view that potentially
shifts the discussion in important ways. In 2010, the United States began to
downsize its total prison population for the first time since 1972 (Guerino,
Harrison, and Sabol 2011). Though the size of the decrease has been small—
state prison populations declined by just over 3 percent between 2009 and
2013—it marks a notable reversal in a four-decade-long trend. Moreover, the
recent national decreases mask substantial heterogeneity at the state level over a
longer time span, with some states having reduced their incarceration rates by 20
percent in the past decade (Greene and Mauer 2010). Even as scholars of incar-
ceration continue to investigate the causes and consequences of dramatic
increases in recent decades, the possible reversal of these trends also warrants
serious consideration (Clear and Frost 2013).
This article investigates variation in state-level incarceration rates from 1980
through 2013, examining the range of social, economic, political, and crimino-
logical factors associated with the rise and decline in prison populations in each
decade. As a starting point for our investigation, we look to those factors most
implicated in the buildup of mass incarceration. Rather than simply assuming
that the same factors underlying incarceration’s rise are also central to its decline,
however, we directly test the influence of each set of variables. To do this, we
model the determinants of annual state incarceration rates, using interaction
terms with decade indicator variables (1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s) to test for
variations in the influence of important factors across time. Our analyses focus on
four key stories that may account for recent declines in incarceration: a crime
story, a budget story, a political story, and an inequality story.
Overall, the results point to continuity in the effects of some factors, while
others appear to shift in influence. For example, violent crime consistently pre-
dicts increases in incarceration across decades, as does the strength of the
Republican Party among state leaders. By contrast, state-level fiscal capacity was

NOTE: Direct comments or queries to Michelle Phelps (phelps@umn.edu). Thanks to Tracy Snell
from the Bureau of Justice Statistics for assistance in assembling the data for our criminal justice
time series. We received helpful comments on an earlier version of this article from Rob Mare,
Gerald Marwell, Pam Oliver, Marcy Carlson, and attendees at the Vera Institute of Justice’s Neil A.
Weiner Research Speaker Series (October 2011) and the 2012 American Sociological Association
meeting, where earlier drafts of the article were presented.

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Inequality and Punishment 187

not a driving force behind the growth in incarceration until the most recent
recession, when we have started to see budgetary pressures play a role in the
slowdown in prison populations. Finally, the results point to the significance of
racial and economic inequality in the buildup of mass incarceration. States’ racial
composition has been a consistent predictor of prison growth as far back as we
can measure. By contrast, as economic inequality climbed in recent decades, we
have seen an increasing association between this indicator and the growth in
incarceration. Together, these results point to the complex array of factors associ-
ated with historical growth and recent declines in incarceration and point to some
of the consequences of living in a high-inequality regime.

The rise of mass incarceration

For most of the twentieth century, the size of the state prison population
remained fairly constant—a little over 100 inmates in state prisons per 100,000
residents—in line with many of our Western European counterparts. Beginning
in the early 1970s, however, these numbers changed dramatically, quadrupling
over the next four decades. The rate of increase slowed somewhat after the mid-
1990s but continued to climb steadily, reaching a high of 447 state inmates per
100,000—or 1.4 million individuals—by the year 2008).1 Though prison expan-
sion has been the dominant trend in the American criminal justice system over
the past four decades, tremendous variation exists across states along this dimen-
sion. States like Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Minnesota have
incarceration rates very similar to those in the UK, Spain, Hungary, and Turkey
(between 150 and 200 inmates per 100,000 residents). Others, by contrast, such
as Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas boast rates of incarceration that
well exceed any other country on record (Walmsley 2013).
State variation in the growth of imprisonment has been primarily attributed to
decisions made by state policy-makers during this era of “tough-on-crime” politics
(Western 2006; Raphael 2009). Between 1984 and 1998, the chances of receiving
a prison sentence following arrest increased by more than 50 percent, and the aver-
age length of sentences increased by nearly 40 percent (Blumstein and Beck 1999).
These increases continued into the 1990s and beyond, with sentence lengths
increasing by more than 35 percent between 1990 and 2009 (Pew Center on the
States 2012; though see Pfaff 2011). The lengthening of prison sentences is often
explained as a result of legislation such as “truth in sentencing” and “three-strikes”
laws, as well as the emergence of harsh mandatory minimum sentencing schemes
(Spelman 2009). While all states adopted some form of mandatory sentencing leg-
islation, differences in the nature and scope of state law resulted in significant vari-
ation in subsequent incarceration trajectories.
Beyond these specific policy levers, scholars have sought to understand the
social, economic, and political contexts in which imprisonment rates have grown.
In other words, why did some states enact the punitive legislation that rapidly
expanded prison rolls while other states restrained growth? The results of this
literature vary across studies depending on the nature of the data (cross-sectional
or panel), model choices, and the range of variables included. Though by no

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188 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

means universal, the most consistent results point to the importance of crime
rates, racial composition (especially percentage black), unemployment rates,
partisan control of states’ legislatures and governorships, and state budget
strength (Beckett and Western 2001; Greenberg and West 2001; Guetzkow 2011;
Jacobs and Carmichael 2001; Smith 2004; Stucky, Heimer, and Lang 2007;
Spelman 2009; Western 2006). We review this literature in more detail below as
we describe the four central stories that guide our analysis.

A turning point in mass incarceration?

The literature on incarceration has been dominated by concerns over the
growth of prison populations. This important line of work will be relevant for many
years to come, as states continue to grapple with historic numbers of inmates and
former inmates in their prisons and communities. And yet there is some reason to
believe that the 40-year trend of prison expansion may at last have run its course
(Clear and Frost 2013). In 2010, the national prison population declined for the
first time since 1972, with half of states reporting a decline in the number of prison
inmates (Guerino, Harrison, and Sabol 2011). It is likely no coincidence that these
declines took place in the wake of a deep economic crisis, during which states faced
record budget deficits (Aviram 2015). But there is reason to believe that recent
reductions in incarceration have not been driven by the current economic crisis
alone, with some states showing longer and deeper histories of decarceration.
How can we explain this important shift in the use of incarceration across
states? What social, political, and economic factors may help us to understand
state-level variation in recent declines? The literature on the rise of incarceration
discussed above can offer some useful hypotheses for state-level correlates that
may predict changes in incarceration. And yet it would be a mistake to simply
assume that the same variables associated with the rise of incarceration are those
driving recent declines (cf. Lieberson 1987, 86). It is thus important to empiri-
cally investigate whether similar social processes that led to the rise of incarcera-
tion in the 1980s and 1990s are also associated with the recent reversal in
incarceration trends in the 2000s and/or whether a different set of factors appear
to be associated with this decline.
Building on recent syntheses of historical research, Campbell, Vogel, and
Williams (2015) pick up on a parallel question, examining whether there have
been distinct “epochs” in the carceral buildup. Using state-level decennial data
from 1970 to 2010, they find that the correlates of high imprisonment rates across
states vary by decade. In a state-level fixed effects model, they find that violent
crime had significant effects on incarceration rates in 1980 and 1990 (relative to
1970) and that Republican strength mattered in 1990 and 2000, but not in other
decades. The interaction terms for 2010 incarceration rates showed few signifi-
cant effects (other than percentage black), suggesting that the standard determi-
nants of incarceration rates during the buildup poorly explain recent changes.
Our investigation furthers this nascent literature by considering four domains
or “stories”—money, politics, crime, and inequality. Similar to Campbell, Vogel,
and Williams (2015), we systematically test for changes in the nature and

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Inequality and Punishment 189

magnitude of effects over time. However, we model these changes in more detail,
using annual—rather than decennial—data and extending the time series out to
2013, as well as providing descriptive visualization of recent trends. Finally, our analy-
sis directly interrogates the role of rising inequality as a factor in the differential
expansion and contraction of incarceration across time. Indeed, one of the conse-
quences of “living in a high-inequality regime” may be a special form of punitive
control that emerges with growing distance between the “haves” and the “have-nots.”
Together, these analyses help us to make sense of the historical correlates of mass
incarceration, as well as those factors associated with its recent signs of reversal.

Data and Methods

Following the bulk of literature on this topic, our primary dependent variable is
state imprisonment rates, measured as the total number of prisoners in a state’s
jurisdiction serving sentences of a year or more (including inmates housed in
local jails, private facilities, or other states due to overcrowding) per 100,000 in
the population, drawing on data published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. We
chose the state as the unit of analysis as most crime policy is set at the state level
and thus most analyses, and data reporting, focus at this level of aggregation. In
addition, we measure the current imprisonment rate, instead of the prison admis-
sion rate, as demographic, budgetary, and political shifts likely influence both
admission and release trends.
In what follows, we provide descriptive evidence on the role of each stylized
story in shaping recent reform trends. For each story, we have a primary indicator
variable or set of variables. For the crime story, we rely on rates of violent index
crimes as collected by the Uniform Crime Reports. These statistics measure the
number of crimes reported to the police (per 100,000 inhabitants) for a series of
specific offenses (murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery,
and aggravated assault). We also look at the drug arrest rate (reported by local
jurisdictions to the FBI) to see if drugs represent a special crime category.2 For
the budget story, we examine data from the U.S. Census’ Survey of State and
Government Finances, looking in particular at the ratio of all state revenue to
state debt in a given year (logged to reduce skew). We also consider general state
expenditures and the percentage of those expenditures devoted to police protec-
tion and welfare.3 For the political story, we rely on the State Partisan Balance
Dataset (Klarner 2003). We create a composite term for Republican strength that
interacts the presence of a Republic governor and percentage Republican in the
state legislature. States with Democratic governors have a Republican strength
value of zero, while states with Republican governors have a Republican strength
value equal to the percentage of Republicans in the upper and lower legislatures.
Finally, for the inequality story, we investigate both economic and racial inequal-
ity, with measures of state-level income inequality (gini coefficient) and racial
composition (percent black) from the U.S. Census. For each variable, we exam-
ine whether starting levels and/or recent changes help to explain why some states
downsized their prison populations.

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190 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

We then assess whether the descriptive findings hold up in a multivariate

time-series model that estimates the effects of these variables on states’ imprison-
ment rates between 1980 and 2013. As with prior research, we lag the independ-
ent variables by one year to better account for causal ordering between state-level
trends and imprisonment rates.4 To control for secular time trends, we include a
(centered) term for year.5 Since we are interested in exploring determinants
across states, we include a random effect for states to control for time-invariant
characteristics. In addition, we cluster the error terms by state (i.e., robust stand-
ard errors), further ensuring against spurious results due to correlation between
state-years. To address asymmetrical forms of causations (Lieberson 1987), we
interact decade (1990s, 2000s, and 2010s) dummy variables with the key out-
comes of interest to test whether the effects of these state characteristics vary
from the buildup to the scaling back of prison populations (with the 1980s as the
omitted reference category). For parsimony, in the presented results, we include
decade interactions for the key stories only when they show statistically signifi-
cant differences over time. In addition to the variables of direct interest, we also
incorporate a range of control variables, including: percentage Hispanic, percent-
age foreign-born, urbanicity, unemployment rate, and total state population.
More detailed information on these variables can be found in Appendix A.
These data contain some missing information. The most commonly missing
values are for the variables only available for census years (percentage urban and
percentage foreign-born) and the drug arrest rate. Finally, the political partisan-
ship of legislators variable is missing in all years for Nebraska. Rather than use
list-wise deletion or linear interpolation—which can lead to biases and inefficien-
cies—we estimate missing values through the Amelia II multiple imputation
program which allows us to model the uncertainty around missing values
(Honaker and King 2010; Honaker, King, and Blackwell 2011). The analyses
were then conducted on the multiply imputed data (with forty imputations).

Results
For each of the four stories we investigate as possible explanations of incarcera-
tion decline, we begin with basic bivariate associations in the most recent years
as a way of identifying potentially important dynamics and to carefully observe
trends across states in a transparent format. We then compare these results to
those generated by our multivariate models, looking across decades. The full
results for the state-level random effects model are listed in Table 1.
We begin with an account of recent trends in imprisonment rates. Nationally,
the peak of total state prison populations was hit in December 2009 (at 1,366,000
prisoners) and declined in 2010, 2011, and 2012. In 2013, the national state pris-
oners population slightly increased—causing some observers to worry that the
prison decline was already over. Between 2010 and 2013, over half of states
(thirty) saw declines in their imprisonment rates, with historically tough-on-
crime Texas declining by 7 percent and California by 20 percent. Taking a longer

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Inequality and Punishment 191

Table 1
State Random Effects Model Predicting Incarceration Rates, 1980–2013

B SE

Key stories
 Violent crime rate 0.088** (0.037)
  Drug arrest rate 0.034 (0.032)
   × 1990s decade 0.088*** (0.031)
   × 2000s decade 0.042 (0.049)
   × 2010s decade 0.039 (0.075)
  Fiscal capacity –8.430 (11.32)
   × 1990s decade –6.169 (10.58)
   × 2000s decade 24.98* (13.92)
   × 2010s decade 31.65* (16.16)
 Expenditures per cap (log) 56.25* (32.32)
  Spending on welfare (%) –0.395 (2.052)
  Spending on police (%) –68.00*** (17.33)
 Republican strength 0.366*** (0.096)
  Income inequality (gini) –9.137*** (2.868)
   × 1990s decade 9.544*** (3.085)
   × 2000s decade 12.38*** (3.870)
   × 2010s decade 13.73*** (4.474)
  Percentage black 5.710** (2.309)
Control variables
  Percentage Hispanic –2.829 (2.304)
  Percentage foreign-born –0.214 (1.146)
  Percentage urban –0.248 (0.398)
  Unemployment rate –4.940*** (1.417)
  State population 0.007** (0.003)
Year (centered) 7.219*** (1.159)
Intercept 575.9*** (138.0)
Decade dummy 1990s –400.7*** (125.4)
Decade dummy 2000s –532.9*** (166.6)
Decade dummy 2010s –633.5*** (202.8)

NOTE: The final number of observations was 1,650 (50 states over 33 years). Predictor vari-
ables were lagged by one year. Missing data were estimated through multiple imputation (forty
imputations). Standard errors are clustered by state.
*p < .10. **p < .05. ***p < .01.

view, between 2000 and 2013, sixteen states showed declines in their imprison-
ment rates, with New York and New Jersey both declining by over 25 percent.
This suggests that recent declines in imprisonment rates have a longer history
than just the most recent fiscal crisis. Indeed, states’ average across-decade

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192 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

change in imprisonment rates dropped precipitously from a mean increase of 131

(prisoners per 100,000 residents) in 1990 to 2000 to just 28 in 2000 to 2010.

A crime story
Intuitively, we think of levels of punishment in a society as primarily deter-
mined by the corresponding rate of crime. Yet scholars of criminal justice largely
agree that changes in policy, rather than changes in crime, have been the primary
drivers of incarceration over the past three decades, particularly as imprisonment
rates continued to climb in the 1990s and 2000s despite steep declines in crime
(Blumstein and Beck 1999; Western 2006). Drug enforcement, for example, a
major driver of the prison boom, was largely disconnected from broader patterns
of criminal activity, and even from drug use and abuse (Tonry 1995). At the same
time, there does appear to be some evidence that more punitive policies devel-
oped in states with a recent or longer-term histories of violent crime (Greenberg
and West 2001; Jacobs and Carmichael 2001; Western 2006).
In considering the role of crime in recent trends, we considered both levels
and changes. While we find little relationship between states’ level of violent
crime in 2010 and subsequent imprisonment rate trends, we find that states with
greater declines in violent crime between 2010 and 2012 were more likely to see
decarceration between 2010 and 2013 (.26, p < .1 ), as depicted in Figure 1.
Similarly, states experiencing greater reductions in violent crime between 2000
and 2012 were more likely to reduce their prison populations between 2000 and
2013 (.31, p < .05).
In the multivariate model, we find a positive, statistically significant effect (at
the .05 level) for violent crime rates on imprisonment rates (see Table 1). No
significant decade interactions were found, so they are omitted from the final
model. While the effect of violent crime remains unchanged, its level has seen a
dramatic reduction, with violent crime rates today lower than they were at the
start of the data series. The scale of the effect is such that one standard deviation
increase decrease (or 129 crimes per 100,000) in states’ 2012 violent crime rate
is associated with a decrease in the following year’s imprisonment rate of 11 pris-
oners per 100,000. While this effect may seem small, the average change in
states’ imprisonment rates in 2013 was -0.3 prisoners, with a standard deviation
of 16 prisoners per 100,000. These findings also suggest that despite fears about
decarceration’s effect on crime, there is no evidence that declining prison popula-
tions are associated with rising crime rates—and in fact the descriptive results
suggest the opposite effect.6 Thus, reductions in imprisonment appear to be
entirely compatible with continued improvements in public safety.
In addition to index crime rates, we also consider a number of additional fac-
tors related to the crime context in a given state. Drug crimes, for example, are
not reflected in the index crime rate, despite the fact that the “war on drugs”
played a significant role in the expansion of the criminal justice system (Tonry
1995). Indeed, drug arrests show a highly significant and positive relationship to
incarceration rates in the 1990s, the decade with the most rapid expansion of
drug prosecution. In contrast, there is no significant effect for the

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Inequality and Punishment 193

Figure 1
Violent Crime Rates and Imprisonment Trends

1980s (baseline), nor are the interaction terms for the 2000s or 2010s statistically
significant. This suggests that the buildup of drug arrests in the 1990s was a
strong determinant of states’ imprisonment rates but grew less important in the
2000s and 2010s as the drug war fervor began to fade.

A budget story
Funding for corrections has been one of the fastest-growing state budget cat-
egories in the past decade, second only to Medicaid. Since the early 1970s the
proportion of state funding dedicated to corrections has doubled; by 2008, states
spent nearly $50 billion on prisons, probation, and parole (Pew 2008). The reces-
sion of 2008 triggered a flurry of interest in corrections spending as states strug-
gled to close record budget deficits (Brown 2013; Vera Institute of Justice 2010).
Between 2009 and 2010, more than half of states reported a decline in prison
expenditures (Scott-Hayward 2009; Subramanian and Tublitz 2012) and at least
forty states cut back some types of correctional expenditures (e.g., on labor costs,
programs, or food services) (Porter 2012). By 2011, the average change in correc-
tions budgets across states was negative, with some states decreasing corrections
spending up to nearly 10 percent (Vera Institute of Justice 2010).
We assess state economic well-being using a measure of fiscal capacity, which
we calculate as the ratio of state revenue to debt (logged to reduce skew).7 We
find that states with lower fiscal capacity in 2010 were significantly more likely to
reduce their incarceration rates between 2010 and 2013 (.25, p < .10). Another

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194 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

Figure 2
Fiscal Capacity and Imprisonment Trends

way to frame this question is to look across time, particularly at the financial
downturn. States with the greatest declines in fiscal capacity between 2000 and
2009 were more likely to reduce their incarceration rates in the subsequent three
years (.31, p < .05), as displayed in Figure 2.
Our multivariate models tell a consistent story. We find no significant effects
for fiscal capacity in the 1980s or 1990s. The 2000s interaction term is positive
and marginally significant, and the 2010s interaction term is larger still and just
barely past the .05 significance level. States with a one standard deviation drop in
fiscal capacity in 2012 are expected to see a decline in the imprisonment rate of
11 prisoners (per 100,000) in the following year, the same magnitude as the effect
of violent crime. Together, these results suggest that the buildup of mass incar-
ceration was achieved with little attention to its financial implications—with
states facing a series of budget crises while continuing to build. Yet more recent
budgetary pressures have led to greater rethinking of punitive criminal justice
policy.
Our multivariate models also include several other spending measures. After
controlling for fiscal capacity, we find a positive (but only marginally significant)
effect for states’ total general expenditures per capita, confirming that prison
populations are tied to state spending. We find no link to the percentage of states’
general expenditures devoted to welfare spending and imprisonment rates (but
see Beckett and Western 2001). We do, however, find a strong negative relation-
ship between state spending on police and imprisonment rates (although note
that police forces also rely on local budgets, which are not included). A one

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Inequality and Punishment 195

standard deviation increase in the percent of general spending devoted to police

in 2012 (or an increase of 0.3 percentage points) is associated with a decrease of
21 (per 100,000) in the following year’s imprisonment rates. This suggests that
states can control both crime and correctional populations through targeted
spending on police. Indeed, targeted policing using “hot spots” and other
response tactics have been credited for significant crime declines in major urban
areas like New York City, although they have also been critiqued for increasing
collateral consequences (Weisburd and Eck 2004).

A politics story
Much of the story of the rise of mass incarceration focuses on dramatic
changes in the politics of punishment—or how crime and punishment are framed
in the public arena (Beckett 1997; Simon 2007). Prior to the 1970s, crime and
criminal justice policy had largely been regarded as a local problem, appropri-
ately managed through decentralized police units, courts, and local governments.
Starting in the mid- to late 1960s, and particularly Nixon’s “war on crime,” pun-
ishment began to feature prominently in state and national campaigns. While
“tough on crime” rhetoric has been popular among Republicans and Democrats
alike, some research has shown a relationship between punitive crime policies
and Republican strength and the public’s conservativism (Guetzkow 2011; Jacobs
and Carmichael 2001; Smith 2004; Yates and Fording 2005). The politics of
imprisonment may be important to the story of recent reductions as well, as lead-
ers on both sides of the aisle begin to propose criminal justice reform.
In the multivariate models, we collapse control of the governor’s office and the
partisan composition of the legislature identified as Republican into one indica-
tor of Republican strength (Jacobs and Carmichael 2001). For the descriptives,
we focus on the association between incarceration and the percentage of a state’s
legislature controlled by Republicans as this measure is easier to display visually.
While the 2000 and 2010 levels of Republican control show little relationship to
trajectories of incarceration, changes in the percentage Republican between
2010 and 2012 are positively correlated with incarceration rate changes from
2000 to 2013 (.36, p < .05), as depicted in Figure 3. States with more modest
increases in the percentage of legislators identified as Republicans in this period
were more likely to show incarceration reductions. Likewise, changes in
Republican control between 2000 and 2012 are associated with changes in incar-
ceration rates from 2000 to 2013 (.29, p < .05).
Multivariate models confirm the import of Republican state leaders. The
results show a significant relationship between Republican strength and states’
imprisonment rates with no significant decade interaction terms. This relation-
ship suggests that in states with a Republican governor, a one standard deviation
increase in the percentage of the legislature controlled by Republicans in 2012
(or 17 percentage points) is associated with an increase of 6 (per 100,000) in the
imprisonment rate in the following year. In contrast to commentators and empiri-
cal findings of a waning partisan influence (Campbell, Vogel, and Williams 2015),
we find that party politics continue to matter for imprisonment rates. Though

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196 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

Figure 3
Republican Legislators and Imprisonment Trends

criminal justice reform represents an increasingly bipartisan priority, our results

suggest that Democratic-controlled states have to date been more effective at
translating that rhetoric into measurable reductions in prison populations.
Whether Republicans will soon catch up (as reforms in conservative states such
as Texas suggest) remains to be seen.

An inequality story
The rise of income inequality has been one of the most spectacular social
changes in the United States since the 1970s. Alongside the growth of incarcera-
tion, we have seen a steady widening of the gap between those at the top and
bottom of the income distribution and a growing concentration of wealth among
the top 1 percent (Piketty 2014). In part crystallized by the Occupy Wall Street
movement, concerns about rising inequality have been growing, and scholars
argue that such gaps between the rich and poor produce less forgiving and more
punitive social policy (Wilkinson and Pickett 2009; though see Saunders 2010;
Deaton 2003). This line of research also calls attention to the centrality of racial
disparities in understanding inequality (again highlighted by recent protests,
particularly those around police violence in Ferguson and elsewhere). Particularly
in discussions of the criminal justice system, the racial context cannot be over-
stated (Alexander 2010).
We consider two key variables related to inequality: income inequality among
households (gini coefficient) and racial composition (percentage of states’

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Inequality and Punishment 197

resident population identified in the census as black, including Hispanics).8 We

find a cross-sectional relationship between states’ gini coefficients and incarcera-
tion rates in 2012, with high imprisonment rates concentrated in those states with
the greatest levels of inequality (the correlation is .23, with a p-value just above
the p < .1 cut-point; however, if New Mexico is excluded, the correlation
increases to .30 and is significant at the .05 level). We find a very strong bivariate
relationship between percent black and the imprisonment rate in 2012 (.58, p <
.001). Yet in part because these two variables tend to change slowly, bivariate
correlations for changes in inequality and incarceration rates produce few signifi-
cant results.
The multivariate context, by contrast, illustrates the effects of both variables
more clearly. In terms of economic inequality, the results show a negative and
significant effect for states’ gini coefficients in the 1980s, suggesting counterintui-
tively that early trajectories of rising incarceration were concentrated in states
with low levels of inequality. By the 1990s, however, the direction of this relation-
ship had flipped, and for the remaining time series we see a strong positive rela-
tionship between inequality and imprisonment. By the 2010s, the coefficient
translates into an increase of 12 inmates per 100,000 residents for every one
standard deviation increase in the 2012 gini. The multivariate results also reveal
that percentage black is an important and significant correlate of imprisonment
rates, and its effect does not vary significantly across decades. The coefficient
estimates that a one standard deviation increase in the percentage black in 2012
(10 percentage points) is associated with an increase of 55 (out of 100,000) in the
imprisonment rate.
Together, these results suggest that both race and class inequalities are crucial
for explaining differences across states. While these characteristics change very
slowly over time, making it more difficult to detect significant associations in the
descriptive data over time, the multivariate results point to the persistent race
and class dimensions shaping trends in the American criminal justice system.
Furthermore, the impact of income inequality has strengthened over time—a
particularly problematic development given the increases in states’ gini coeffi-
cients over the decades. As economic inequality has crept up in the postrecession
period, it remains to be seen how patterns of incarceration may be affected mov-
ing forward.

Summary
Overall, these patterns offer some support for each of the four stories we
investigate, with some persistent effects and others newly emerging. The “crime
story” was supported, with violent crime rates positively correlated with impris-
onment rates across the decades. The “budget story” also revealed that states
struggling the most with fiscal capacity were the most likely to reduce prison
populations after 2010. This suggests that the rhetoric around financial pressures
was not simply empty talk but, rather, an important contributor to recent down-
ward trends. In contrast, we expected to find a waning influence of partisan
control; but instead the results suggest that Republican legislators and governors

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198 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

continue to be associated with higher imprisonment rates. Whether this will

change as we move further into the 2010s remains to be seen. Finally, working
against the progressive trends associated with reductions in violent crime and
shrinking state budgets, we find persistent racial dynamics and growing economic
inequality may slow the pace of reform. Despite these barriers, the 2010s indeed
represented a real turning point for U.S. incarceration rates. Setting the stage for
that decline—two decades of falling crime rates and the worst economic reces-
sion of a generation—was a fairly profound reconfiguring which is likely to be felt
well into the future.

Conclusions
Recent trends in states’ prison populations offer a glimpse into a possible future
of crime and punishment. The large declines over the past decade in some states
suggest that the recent national downturn is not just a momentary response to the
current financial crisis but, rather, a potential sign of declines for many years to
come. As the politics of crime and punishment continue to shift, we may continue
to see declines even as states’ budget health increase. Whereas earlier debates on
crime policy equated alternatives to incarceration as being “soft on crime,” recent
reforms show that reductions in incarceration have appeared alongside continued
crime drops. To the extent that reductions in prison populations can be achieved
without a corresponding increase in crime bodes well for continued public sup-
port of alternative (and less punitive) approaches.
If states plan decarceration wisely, this trend has the potential to become one
of the most equality-enhancing institutional shifts we have witnessed in many
years. For each of the “collateral consequences” of mass imprisonment, we can
outline parallel gains for reductions in imprisonment rates. For example, fewer
inmates serving prison sentences will alleviate the stigmatizing labor market con-
sequences of imprisonment (Western 2006; Pager 2007), make voter rolls more
democratically representative (Lerman and Weaver 2014), and reunite families
and communities that otherwise would have faced the separation of imprison-
ment (Comfort 2008; Clear 2007). This could in turn help to better protect the
next generation of children growing up in the families most affected by criminal
justice control (Wakefield and Wildeman 2013). Lastly, to the extent that decar-
ceration reduces racial disparities and/or the experience of imprisonment among
black families, it has the potential to reduce racial inequalities for children and
adults by reducing the number of “missing men” and de-normalizing the prison
experience (Alexander 2010).
At the same time, it is important to recognize that how reductions in imprison-
ment unfold will have deep ramifications for its consequences (Gottschalk 2014).
As mentioned above, states are working to reduce prison populations through a
variety of mechanisms, some of which affect the inflow of inmates—including
sentencing reform and improvements to probation and parole practices that
reduce the rate of revocation to prison—and others that affect the outflow of
inmates—including shorter presumptive sentences and increasing opportunities

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Inequality and Punishment 199

for early release. Reforms that reduce imprisonment rates simply via a transfer to
community corrections (probation and parole) seem particularly limited.
Individuals with a criminal record, regardless of their prison experience, will still
face discrimination and legal barriers, including limitations on employment,
housing, and voting (Western 2006; Pager 2007; Petersilia 2003). The arena
where this may make a substantial difference is in family and community-level
effects, since individuals on probation and parole are generally not removed from
the community.
In addition, without the proper resources and practices in place for probation
and parole, a transfer of prisoners to community supervision (or no supervision
at all) could increase revocation rates and drive up correctional costs (Phelps
2013; Weisberg and Petersilia 2010). This could in turn spike crime and create a
new wave of reform backlash, particularly as states’ budgets recover (Gottschalk
2014). It is worth remembering that the individuals being sent to prison bring
with them a host of problems, including high rates of substance abuse, mental
health problems, and poor earnings prospects, all of which create challenges for
reentry. Recognizing these concerns, a number of states are now participating in
“justice reinvestment,” which aims to reduce spending on corrections and to
reinvest in disadvantaged communities (often through community corrections).
While the implementation of these initiatives has met with mixed evaluation
(Austin et al. 2013; LaVigne et al. 2014), there is good evidence to suggest that
states can make probation and parole “smarter” in ways that can reduce overall
correctional populations and costs while maintaining a strong commitment to
public safety (Jacobson 2005; Pew 2009).
In addition, there is growing support for various decriminalization and diver-
sion options, particularly for drug offenders. These policies work by downgrading
criminal charges (allowing more individuals to avoid felony-level convictions)
and/or allowing for diversion and record expunging once alternative sanctions are
complete (Subramanian and Moreno 2014). Reforms that reduce the number of
individuals targeted with the stigma of a conviction record may have the greatest
effects on reducing inequalities. However, it is worth noting that in many cases,
states are simply expanding the reach of misdemeanor punishment, rather than
truly decriminalizing, and even this low-level involvement with the criminal jus-
tice system can have negative effects on individuals’ life outcomes (Natapoff
2014).
Thus, it remains to be seen whether and to what extent recent declines will
persist into the future and how their implementation will shape patterns of ine-
quality. The massive changes in the criminal justice system over the past four
decades have been among the most significant transformations in the stratifica-
tion system during this time; recent signs of a reversal could signal a similarly
historic shift. Indeed, given the substantial impact of incarceration, particularly
in the lives of the poor, changes in the scale of incarceration will likely represent
one of the most significant institutional shifts affecting inequality in the years to
come.

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200 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

Appendix A
Variable Sources and Summary Statistics

Variable Source N Mean SD

Incarceration rate Bureau of Justice Statistics 1,650 301 157

Violent crime rate Federal Bureau of 1,650 450 227
Investigation, Uniform
Crime Reports
Drug arrest rate Federal Bureau of 1,553 378 190
Investigation, Uniform
Crime Reports
Fiscal capacity U.S. Census, Survey of State 1,650 0.77 0.56
Government Finances
Expenditures per cap (log) U.S. Census, Survey of State 1,650 1.38 0.34
Government Finances
Spending on welfare (%) U.S. Census, Survey of State 1,650 7.50 2.94
Government Finances
Spending on police (%) U.S. Census, Survey of State 1,650 0.89 0.30
Government Finances
Republican strength Carl Klarner’s State Partisan 1,617 23.0 26.6
Balance Dataset
Income inequality (gini) U.S. Census 1,650 43.2 3.2
Percentage black U.S. Census 1,650 10.0 9.4
Percentage Hispanic U.S. Census 1,650 7.04 8.62
Percentage foreign-born U.S. Census 250 6.66 5.53
Percentage urban U.S. Census 250 70.7 14.6
Unemployment rate Bureau of Labor Statistics 1,650 6.07 2.15
State population U.S. Census 1,650 5,378 5,895

Notes
1. Authors’ calculations using the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ Corrections Statistical Analysis Tool,
available at: http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=nps (accessed August 26, 2015).
2. There is substantial missing data for adult drug arrest totals. To improve data quality, we only use
data from counties with populations over 50,000. County-level data were only available reliably beginning
in 1990 (with 1993 missing). For 1980s estimates, we relied on jurisdiction-level counts (available on CD
from the FBI).
3. Welfare spending is defined as all public welfare spending except medical vendor and Medicare
payments.
4. We experimented with lags of varying time spans. Lags of 1 to 3 years yielded substantively similar
results for the variables of interest.
5. The time variable ranges from –16 to 17. Including a fixed effect for year produces similar results.
6. States with reductions in imprisonment rates from 2000 to 2011 were more likely to see violent
crime decline between 2000 and 2012 (.25, p < .1).

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Inequality and Punishment 201

7. Almost all states have balanced budget laws, meaning that by the end of the fiscal year states must
reconcile any spending obligations in excess of their revenues. The fiscal capacity measure may therefore
underestimate the full extent of financial strain.
8. We focus on the gini coefficient as our measure of economic inequality because of its availability and
role in the literature, but future research might benefit from analyzing the concentration of wealth among
the top 1 percent (Picketty 2014).

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