Abstract
ABSTRACT Virtually all research on the effect of socio-economic variables on incarceration controls for either violent crime or Index crimes. As a result, these studies fail to control for the effect of the “war on drugs.” Further, previous research fails to adequately investigate the indirect effects of race and poverty through crime. Utilizing 1990 cross-sectional data from all 67 counties in Pennsylvania, this study examines the direct and indirect effects of socio-economic variables on the rate at which individuals are incarcerated in both county jails and state prisons. The models estimated here separately control for four measures of crime: index crime; violent crime; index and drug crime; and violent and drug crime. The direct effect of percent nonwhite was a significant predictor of incarceration rates in only two of the eight equations examined In the case of percent nonwhite, these results are most likely attributed to the high level of multicollinearity. The indirect effect of percent nonwhite was substantial. In four of the equations, the indirect effect was greater than the direct effect. There was no support for the hypothesis that the level of poverty was positively related to incarceration.
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