About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

73 Hastings L.J. 1099 (2022)
Mass Criminalization and Racial Disparities in Conviction Rates

handle is hein.journals/hastlj73 and id is 1100 raw text is: Mass Criminalization and Racial Disparities in Conviction Rates ERIN E. MEYERSt A staggering number of Americans experience criminal justice contact each year, ranging from arrest to long-term incarceration. One 2014 Wall Street Journal report estimated that approximately one in three Americans are represented in the FBI's master criminal database. Many scholars and commentators have questioned the desirability of mass criminalization and the resulting large-scale arrests. I add new empirical context to this ongoing discussion by examining conviction rates among a nationally representative sample of young men. I find that, conditional on having been arrested Black men are 29% less likely than their similarly situated White counterparts to experience conviction. This result may come as a surprise, given that existing research shows that Black men experience worse outcomes at the arrest and sentencing stages of criminal justice processing. Upon further examination, the result makes sense in the context of selection effects. Supplemental analyses show that the lower conviction rate of Black men is likely driven by over-arrest (i.e., that police are likely to use discretion in arrest decisions in a discriminatory manner). This apparent disconnect between policing decisions and prosecutorial screening raises serious questions of the validity and desirability of arresting so many Black men each year. My empirical analysis further suggests that more than 50% of Black men have been arrested by young adulthood. Each arrest is psychologically and financially costly to the arrestee, cultivates lasting stigma directed at the arrestee, limits the arrestee's future labor market opportunities, costs taxpayer money in the form of policing budgets, and increases the likelihood of police violence. My results highlight the distributional costs of mass criminalization-often borne by Black individuals-and add context to the discussion of whether the costs of large-scale arrests exceed their benefits. 1099 T J.DJPh.D., Program in Law and Economics, Vanderbilt Law School, 2021. eemeyers29@gmail.com. I am grateful to my dissertation committee, the faculty at Vanderbilt Law School, and students in the Law and Economics program for reading countless drafts of this piece and providing excellent guidance. Many thanks to the editors of the Hastings Law Journal for their assistance in preparing this piece for publication.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most