Doctoral Dissertation Research: Racial Disparity in American Incarceration, 1868-1950

布鲁斯·韦斯特·克里斯托弗·穆勒哈佛大学1970年至2010年间，美国的监禁率增加了五倍，从大约每10万居民100人增加到大约每10万居民500人。没有其他国家监禁了如此大比例的人口。随着监禁率的增加，它仍然存在着显著的种族差异。今天，非裔美国人被监禁的比例大约是白人的六倍。论文的研究表明，在美国历史的不同时期，监禁中的种族差异有着不同的根源。南北战争之后，南方监禁的种族差异是由农业和工业经济的转变所推动的。在大移民期间，北方的种族差距扩大，部分原因是移民的非裔美国人和最近在北部警察部队中占主导地位的欧洲移民之间的地位冲突。今天，种族差距持续存在，不仅是因为禁毒战争，也是因为郊区选民对城市刑事司法政策的影响。这三个假说将通过档案记录、二手史料和定量数据进行验证。近年来，监禁中严重的种族差异一直是公众和学者关注的主题。一些学者追溯了以前的社会控制机构，如奴隶制和吉姆·克罗，与今天非洲裔美国人的高监禁率之间的直接联系。相反，这个项目的目的是对美国历史上三个时期的种族差距的根源进行实证研究。了解这些来源将使我们能够更好地了解导致当今在惩罚方面存在巨大种族不平等的问题。

Bruce Western Christopher MullerHarvard UniversityBetween 1970 and 2010, the U.S. imprisonment rate increased fivefold, from roughly 100 per 100,000 residents to roughly 500 per 100,000 residents. No other nation incarcerates such a large proportion of its population. As the incarceration rate increased, it retained a striking racial disparity. African Americans today are imprisoned at about six times the rate of whites. The dissertation research proposes that racial disparity in incarceration had different sources in different periods of U.S. history. Immediately following the Civil War, racial differences in incarceration in the South were driven by transformations in the agricultural and industrial economy. During the Great Migration, racial disparity rose in the North due, in part, to status conflicts between migrating African Americans and the recent European immigrants who dominated northern police forces. Today, racial disparity persists not only because of the War on Drugs, but because of suburban voters' influence over urban criminal justice policy. These three hypotheses will be tested using archival records, secondary historical materials, and quantitative data.Broader Impacts In recent years, severe racial disparities in incarceration have been the subject of public and scholarly concern. Some scholars trace a direct path between former institutions of social control, such as slavery and Jim Crow, and high rates of African-American incarceration today. This project aims instead to study empirically the sources of racial disparity in three periods of U.S. history. Understanding these sources will better enable us to understand the problems that have led to vast racial inequality in punishment today.