Abstract
This study aims to explore what factors influence an increase in incarceration numbers across the United States. The literature is full of theories regarding the school to prison pipeline, and which policies specifically cause higher incarceration levels. Among researchers there is not an agreed upon cause for mass incarceration. It is understood that a variety of political, social and normative factors shape the landscape of the prison system in the United States. Factors that are said to influence a states incarceration rates include: (1) policy liberalism within a state, defined by which reductions in mandatory sentences and pushes towards rehabilitative justice a state has undertaken; (2) racial demographics of the state; (3) out of school suspension rates; (4) youth poverty levels; and (5) the political leaning of a state, meaning whether the state tends to vote more Republican or Democrat. This study utilizes regression analysis to explore which of the above factors have a significant impact on state incarceration rates. The overall conclusion was that conservative states, which are characterized as having low policy liberalism, tend to have higher levels of incarceration. In addition, when percentage of Republicans in a state is controlled for, Black and Latino out of school suspension rates were double that of White students.
Advisor
Van Doorn, Bas
Department
Political Science
Recommended Citation
Miller, Noah G., "Graduates or Convicts: The School to Prison Pipeline and the Criminalization of Youth. A Statistical Analysis of Policies and Biases that Impact Mass Incarceration in the United States, 2012." (2017). Senior Independent Study Theses. Paper 7469.
https://openworks.wooster.edu/independentstudy/7469
Disciplines
Law and Race
Publication Date
2017
Degree Granted
Bachelor of Arts
Document Type
Senior Independent Study Thesis
© Copyright 2017 Noah G. Miller