The Many Faces of Racial Stratification
Paper Session
Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021 12:15 PM - 2:15 PM (EST)
- Chair: Robynn Cox, University of Southern California
The Impact of Intergovernmental Transfers on Racial Disparities in Incarceration: Evidence from the Edward Byrne Program
Abstract
The Edward Byrne Memorial State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance Program is a grant program authorized under the 1988 Anti-Drug Abuse Act to combat illicit drug abuse and to improve the criminal justice system. Funds for the Byrne Grant program could be used for a variety of purposes to combat drug crimes, violent and other drug related crimes, corrections, and to enhance cooperation and coordination within the criminal justice system, including to provide funding to expand prosecutorial and judicial resources, as well as programs to increase public correctional resources. Between the years 1988 and 1994 corrections had the second largest percentage of Byrne grant funds. Although our preliminary research finds significant increases in white drug arrests rates, in this paper we find that the amount of Byrne grant funding significantly increases the incarceration rate only for African Americans. Specifically, for every $100 increase in funding, black incarceration rates increased by roughly 3100 individuals per 100,000 residents, while white incarceration rates increase by an insignificant 212 per 100,000 residents. Even though Byrne grants lead to a significant increase in drug arrest rates for whites, their incarceration rates remain unchanged, suggesting that Byrne grants are associated with higher racial disparities in incarceration.Modeling of Racial Disparities in Female Incarceration Rates: Conventional Behavioral Approaches versus Structural Analysis
Abstract
Since 2000, there has been a dramatic narrowing of the racial gap in female incarceration rates. An unprecedented decrease in the number of African American women incarcerated has occurred at the same time that the number of white women in prison has grown to new heights. It is tempting to model this narrowing of racial gaps in incarceration as a behavioral response to the increases in opioid addiction rates and other factors that may differ by race. Structural determinants of racial disparities in incarceration – such as state sentencing reforms or child welfare mandates -- often enter conventional econometric models as endogenous cofounding factors, much in the same way that law enforcement enters into Becker-type rational choice models of crime. This paper demonstrates that how one treats structural determinants substantively affects model specification and estimation strategies and produces radically different interpretations of the resulting estimates. The findings emerge from a unique pooled cross-section time-series measuring incarceration (National Corrections Reporting Program (NCRP)), foster-care (Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS)), opioid addiction rates and mortality rates, sentencing reforms and child welfare policiesCan Baby Bonds Address Historic Racial Injustice?
Abstract
The injustices that have been visited upon African Americans in the United States have a substantial economic legacy. The wealth gap between African American and White citizens is just one visible element of that legacy, but it illustrates that these injustices have caused persistent economic harm. As a response, some Black scholars and policymakers have proposed a “Baby Bonds” wealth-building policy. In this paper I complement the economic justifications for this policy by examining the philosophic case in terms of specific kinds of harm caused by racial injustice and two dominant accounts of justice used in this literature: compensatory justice and equality of opportunity. I argue that a Baby Bonds proposal cannot be justified as an appropriate response to most historic injustices, but it could be an appropriate policy response specifically to barriers to economic opportunity caused by persistent wealth gaps.Patterns of Wealth Accumulation and Inequality at the Intersection of Gender and Race: The Case of the USA
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to analyze the patterns of wealth accumulation and inequality at the intersection of gender and race, in the context of the institutional transformation in the US financial sector during the subprime boom and in the aftermath of the Great Recession. It analyzes the extent to which disadvantages in wealth accumulation for single female households of color can be attributed to their gender and/or race. Using data from the U.S. Survey of Consumer Finances between 1989 and 2016, the paper aims to understand what the main source of wealth accumulation are for different racial and gender groups, what the corresponding patterns of asset holdings, debt, and leverage are over time, and which dimension of discrimination – gender or race – contributes more to explaining these patterns of wealth accumulation and rising wealth inequality since the 1990s. The paper finds higher wealth disparities across race than gender, and a generally reinforcing race and gender effects for female households of color. Single households headed by Black and Latino women are found to experience a “double penalty” of their race and gender, with significantly lower wealth levels compared to single households headed by White men, which is driven primarily by differences in homeownership. The findings of this paper highlight the need for a race-and gender-sensitive macroeconomic policy framework in order to effectively reduce wealth inequality in the USA.JEL Classifications
- K4 - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior
- D3 - Distribution