| African Americans and Latinos are overrepresented in U.S. prisons, yet few studies examine macro-level predictors of imprisonment inequality beyond criminal arrests. The pivotal role of interstate jurisdictional context has been largely overlooked. This dissertation expands upon macro-level studies of Black-White and Latino-White disparities in prison admissions and sentence length by investigating under-examined contextual factors, including racial/ethnic threat, socioeconomic inequality, and the political and legal climate, that may impact sentencing outcomes. I use ordinary least squares and hierarchical linear modeling regression techniques to analyze data from the National Corrections Reporting Program, appended to other county- and state-level data sources, to disentangle the effects of contextual factors. My findings suggest that higher levels of criminal arrests do not fully explain why Blacks and Latinos are overrepresented in U.S. prisons, especially for drug crimes. Still, several of my hypotheses were not supported by the data. Counter to my hypotheses, a large presence of minorities in a county inversely predicts admissions inequality and severity of punishment. Likewise, a heavy conservative presence is associated with less inequality in prison admissions, while having relatively no effect on sentence length. Socioeconomic inequality predicts inequality in prison admissions, but not sentencing severity. Overall, the findings of this study delineate a complex relationship between race, ethnicity, crime, and location, and provide a more nuanced sociological understanding of the role county-level context plays in predicting unequal punishment outcomes for Blacks, Latinos, and Whites. |
