The Old Jim Crow: Racial Residential Segregation and Neighborhood Imprisonment

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lapo.12022
• Published date: 01 July 2014
• Date: 01 July 2014

The Old Jim Crow: Racial Residential

Segregation and Neighborhood Imprisonment

TRACI BURCH

This article examines the impact of racial residential segregation on imprisonment

rates at the neighborhood level. Key to the strength of this enterprise is block-

group level data on imprisonment, crime, and other demographic factors for about

5,000 neighborhoods in North Carolina. These data also include information on

county racial residential segregation from the Population Studies Center at the

University of Michigan. Hierarchical linear models that control for neighborhood

characteristics, such as racial diversity, crime, poverty, unemployment, median

income, homeownership, and other factors, show that neighborhoods in more

segregated counties have higher imprisonment rates than neighborhoods in less

segregated counties. On average, neighborhoods in counties with segregation

levels at the minimum of 41.4 are expected to have imprisonment rates of 0.186

percent, while neighborhoods in counties with segregation levels at the maximum

of 95.6 are expected to have imprisonment rates more than twice as high, or about

0.494 percent.

INTRODUCTION

Mass imprisonment is one of the most important policy changes the United

States has seen in the past forty years. Since 1970, the number of people

imprisoned for committing crimes in the United States has grown

exponentially. Although the number of prisoners declined slightly in 2010,

still 1.6 million people, or one in two hundred adults, in the United States are

in prison today (Guerino, Harrison, and Sabol 2011). The racial disparity in

imprisonment is well known: blacks and Hispanics each make up about 13

percent of the US population but are 37 percent and 22 percent of the

nation’s prisoners, respectively (ibid.). This disparity is particularly burden-

some for blacks: non-Hispanic black males had an imprisonment rate of 3.1

percent, a rate that is more than seven times that of non-Hispanic white males

ibid.). The Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that 7.3 percent of black

males age thirty to thirty-four are incarcerated in state or federal prison

(ibid.).

Address correspondence to Traci Burch, American Bar Foundation, 50 N Lake Shore Drive, 4th

Floor, Chicago, Illinois 60611, USA. Telephone: (312) 988-6566; E-mail: tburch@abfn.org.

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LAW & POLICY, Vol. 36, No. 3, July 2014 ISSN 0265–8240

© 2014 The Author

Law & Policy © 2014 The University of Denver/Colorado Seminary

doi: 10.1111/lapo.12022

Observers have referred to the advent of mass imprisonment as “The New

Jim Crow” because the devastating racial impact of imprisonment effectively

isolates black poor men from economic, social, and civic life (Alexander

2011). However, we cannot forget that the old elements of Jim Crow, par-

ticularly racial residential segregation, are also implicated in the mass impris-

onment phenomenon. Yet, as Peterson and Krivo write, “societal processes

that lead to differences in structural conditions have been treated as outside

of criminological concerns” (2010, 7). This article examines the impact of

racial residential segregation on imprisonment rates at the neighborhood

level. Theories of the concentration of poverty by William Julius Wilson and

Massey and Denton show how racial disparities in outcomes interact with

existing patterns of racial residential segregation to create pockets of extreme

economic deprivation (Massey and Denton 1993; Wilson 1987). Other work

has built on these studies to show that racial residential segregation also

concentrates other social ills at the neighborhood level (Peterson and Krivo

2010; Charles, Dinwiddie, and Massey 2004; Acevedo-Garcia et al. 2003;

Acevedo-Garcia 2000; Collins and Williams 1999). This project builds on this

body of work to establish that imprisonment also reaches extreme levels in

certain neighborhoods due to racial residential segregation.

To test this hypothesis, I measure the spatial concentration of imprison-

ment at the neighborhood level and relate it to racial residential segregation

for about five thousand neighborhoods1in North Carolina.2Key to the

strength of this enterprise are block-group level data on imprisonment, crime,

and other demographic factors collected from state boards of elections,

departments of corrections, departments of public health, and the Census

Bureau for 2000. These data also include information on county racial resi-

dential segregation from the Population Studies Center at the University of

Michigan. Never before has such a comprehensive data collection been

undertaken to determine the causal influence of racial residential segregation

on mass imprisonment. These uniquely detailed and up-to-date data allow

for precise regression analyses at the neighborhood level.

The findings indicate that high levels of racial residential segregation are

clearly associated with high neighborhood imprisonment rates. Hierarchical

linear models that control for neighborhood characteristics such as racial

diversity, crime, poverty, unemployment, median income, homeownership,

and other factors, along with county-level characteristics, such as median

income, poverty, and crime, show that neighborhoods in more segregated

counties have higher imprisonment rates than neighborhoods in less segre-

gated counties, all other factors being equal. Based on simulations, a typical

North Carolina neighborhood in a county with segregation levels of 41.4 (the

minimum in the data set) is expected to have an imprisonment rate (defined

simply as the ratio of prisoners to neighborhood residents) of about 0.186

percent. However, that same North Carolina neighborhood in a county that

is 95.6 percent segregated would be expected to have an imprisonment rate of

0.494 percent, a rate more than double that expected for the neighborhood in

224 LAW & POLICY July 2014

© 2014 The Author

Law & Policy © 2014 The University of Denver/Colorado Seminary

the less segregated county. The relationship between segregation and incar-

ceration does not vary by neighborhood racial composition (that is, interac-

tion effects are not statistically significant between neighborhood race and

county segregation). However, black neighborhoods overall experience

higher incarceration rates than neighborhoods with fewer blacks.

The finding that racial residential segregation matters so much to the

concentration of imprisonment at the neighborhood level makes several

important contributions. Previous research has shown that imprisonment

rates vary greatly across neighborhoods, with black and poor neighborhoods

bearing the brunt of imprisonment (Sampson and Loeffler 2010; Fagan,

West, and Holland 2004; Lynch and Sabol 2004b; Travis 2004; Lynch et al.

2002). Other research has shown that high imprisonment at the neighbor-

hood level can have devastating collateral consequences for economic stabil-

ity, marriage opportunities, public health, crime, and other phenomena at the

neighborhood level (Western and Wildeman 2009; Massoglia 2008;

Baillargeon et al. 2004; Braman 2002). Therefore, understanding the factors

that affect neighborhood imprisonment rates, particularly racial residential

segregation, is important for improving the quality of life in disadvantaged

communities.

As noted above, sociologists have studied the impact of residential segre-

gation on the spatial concentration of outcomes other than imprisonment

such as poverty, educational attainment, and health for decades (Sampson,

Sharkey, and Raudenbush 2008; Adelman 2004; Charles, Dinwiddie, and

Massey 2004; Acevedo-Garcia 2000; Massey and Fischer 2000; Massey,

Gross, and Eggers 1991). Perhaps the most important contribution of this

project is to introduce imprisonment as an aspect of neighborhood context

that also is shaped by racial residential segregation. As this article will show,

imprisonment affects black and poor neighborhoods detrimentally and leads

to clear patterns of geographic disadvantage. Exploring the effects of these

patterns of inequality will become increasingly important to understanding

the quality of life experienced by residents of disadvantaged communities

relative to other people.

THEORY

According to Michelle Alexander (2011), racial disparities in imprisonment,

coupled with the explicit and implicit barriers to ex-felon reintegration, serve

to isolate a large proportion of poor black men from the economy and the

polity. This article shows how this “new” Jim Crow interacts with racial

residential segregation, a prominent feature of traditional, or old, Jim Crow,

to produce spatially concentrated imprisonment, which itself brings a set of

social and economic problems. This section will discuss racial disparities in

imprisonment and isolation, spatially concentrated imprisonment, and racial

residential segregation in turn in order to argue that racial residential

Burch THE OLD JIM CROW 225

© 2014 The Author

Law & Policy © 2014 The University of Denver/Colorado Seminary