Racial Disproportionality in Imprisonment Reconsidered: A Reanalysis of Blumstein's Conclusions using Federal Data.

Using aggregate data from the late 1970's, Blumstein (1982) compared racial disproportionality in arrests and prison populations for several serious crimes. Although the proportion varied notably by crime type, about 80% of overall racial differences in incarceration were accounted for by differences in arrest. The current study utilizes multiple resources, including data from the U.S. Marshall's Service and the Federal Bureau of Prisons, to extend this class work in several ways: 1) it replicates Blumstein's original analysis using more recent data on the federal justice system 2) it extends his work by examining racial disproportionality for additional crime types such as immigration and fraud cases, and 3) it further disaggregates racial disproportionality examining intermediate racial differences in criminal sentencing between federal arrests and prison populations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]