Thesis
An Examination of Predictors of Rising Jail Incarceration in Rural Counties
Washington State University
Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
01/2022
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000004586
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/124992
Abstract
Despite the extensive amount of research available on incarceration, extraordinarily little is known about the causes of variations in jail incarceration across the United States, with even less known about the effect of county urbanicity on local jail populations despite emerging trends. Prior research at the cross-national and national level indicate that right political dominance is significantly associated with higher incarceration rates. I apply this political perspective to the local level of analysis. Using “percent vote republican” by county in the presidential election of 2016 as a measure of right political dominance, I examine the extent to which conservative political attitudes captured in the voting behaviors of the adults that make up the county predict total jail population rates. I also assess the extent to which other theoretical perspectives related to economics, crime, and demographics can be used to explain the relationship between rurality and rising jail incarceration rates. The findings suggest that while rural areas do not incarcerate more of their population because of conservative political attitudes, they do incarcerate more of their population because they have weaker economic bases than do non-rural.
Metrics
Details
- Title
- An Examination of Predictors of Rising Jail Incarceration in Rural Counties
- Creators
- Sandra Yokley
- Contributors
- Alair MacLean (Advisor)Justin Denney (Committee Member)Jennifer Schwartz (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Sociology, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 51
- Identifiers
- OCLC#: 1370910348; 99900898740601842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis