Variations in the gender ratio of criminal punishment across states and over time

The gender gap in criminal punishment has decreased in recent decades, although the female population under correctional supervision has always been small relative to the male population. Yet, there has been no attention in the academic literature to this trend. The aim of this dissertation is to address this gap in the literature by studying the factors associated with variations in the gender ratio of criminal punishment across states over time. To guide my analysis, I draw on political economy of punishment perspective and Garland (1985)'s concepts of the “penal-welfare complex” as well as research on demography, gender stratification, political factors, and criminal justice policies.; I use annual state-level data and estimate fixed effects models to predict variations in the gender ratios of imprisonment and probation, across states and over time. I find that as the proportion of economically marginalized women in the population increases, relative the proportion of economically marginalized men, the gender ratio of criminal punishment increases. In addition, I find some support for the argument that criminal justice intervention in the lives of women is somewhat reduced when other social control mechanisms, such as welfare, are increased. I also find suggestive evidence that the war on drugs may have played role in changes in the gender ratio of imprisonment.