{"title":"The social foundations of racial inequalities in arrest over the life course and in changing times","authors":"Robert J. Sampson, Roland Neil","doi":"10.1111/1745-9125.12374","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Although racial disparities in criminal justice contact are long-standing and the subject of continuing public debate, few studies have linked early-life social conditions to racial disparities in arrest over the life course and in changing times. In this article, we advance and test a theoretical model of racial inequality in long-term arrest histories on a representative sample of nearly 1,000 individuals from multiple birth cohorts in the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. Large Black–White disparities in arrests from ages 10 to 40 arise from racial inequalities in exposure to cumulative childhood advantages and disadvantages rather than from race-specific effects. Smaller but meaningful Hispanic–White gaps follow a similar pattern, and the same explanations of racial disparities hold across different offense types and across birth cohorts who came of age at different times during 1995 to 2021. These findings indicate that inequalities in early-life structural factors, which themselves are historically shaped, trigger processes of cumulative advantage and disadvantage that produce racial disparities in arrests over the life course and that persist across different points in contemporary history.</p>","PeriodicalId":48385,"journal":{"name":"Criminology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.6000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1745-9125.12374","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Criminology","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1745-9125.12374","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"CRIMINOLOGY & PENOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Although racial disparities in criminal justice contact are long-standing and the subject of continuing public debate, few studies have linked early-life social conditions to racial disparities in arrest over the life course and in changing times. In this article, we advance and test a theoretical model of racial inequality in long-term arrest histories on a representative sample of nearly 1,000 individuals from multiple birth cohorts in the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. Large Black–White disparities in arrests from ages 10 to 40 arise from racial inequalities in exposure to cumulative childhood advantages and disadvantages rather than from race-specific effects. Smaller but meaningful Hispanic–White gaps follow a similar pattern, and the same explanations of racial disparities hold across different offense types and across birth cohorts who came of age at different times during 1995 to 2021. These findings indicate that inequalities in early-life structural factors, which themselves are historically shaped, trigger processes of cumulative advantage and disadvantage that produce racial disparities in arrests over the life course and that persist across different points in contemporary history.
尽管刑事司法接触中的种族差异由来已久,也是公众持续讨论的主题,但很少有研究将生命早期的社会条件与生命过程中和不断变化的时代中的逮捕种族差异联系起来。在这篇文章中,我们以芝加哥街区人类发展项目(Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods)中多个出生队列的近千名代表性样本为研究对象,推进并验证了长期逮捕史中种族不平等的理论模型。从 10 岁到 40 岁,黑人和白人在逮捕记录上的巨大差异来自于种族在童年累积的优势和劣势方面的不平等,而不是种族特有的影响。西班牙裔与白人之间的差距虽然较小,但却具有重要意义,而且在不同的犯罪类型中,以及在 1995 年至 2021 年期间处于不同年龄段的出生组群中,对种族差异的解释也是相同的。这些研究结果表明,生命早期结构性因素的不平等(这些因素本身是由历史形成的)引发了优势和劣势的累积过程,在整个生命过程中产生了逮捕方面的种族差异,并且在当代历史的不同时期持续存在。
期刊介绍:
Criminology is devoted to crime and deviant behavior. Disciplines covered in Criminology include: - sociology - psychology - design - systems analysis - decision theory Major emphasis is placed on empirical research and scientific methodology. Criminology"s content also includes articles which review the literature or deal with theoretical issues stated in the literature as well as suggestions for the types of investigation which might be carried out in the future.