Race Matters: Disproportionality of Incarceration for Drug Dealing in Massachusetts

In: Journal of drug issues: JDI, Band 30, Heft 2, S. 345-374

Abstract

Many observers have recognized and decried the disproportionate impact on young minority males of harsh sentencing policies for drug dealing. Nationwide, African-Americans and Hispanics constituted 78.2 percent of incarcerated drug offenders in 1996. Their incarceration rates for drug offenses were respectively 17 and 8 times greater than non-Hispanic white rates. The disproportionalities for drug offenses were over twice as wide as the disproportionalities for other types of offenses.1 Scholars have noted the lack of hard data about neighborhood dynamics of arrest and incarceration for drug dealing, but they have nonetheless tended to explain the disproportionate impact on minorities with reference to neighborhood phenomena. This paper uses a mapping of the pre-incarceration residences of drug-dealers incarcerated in state prison in Massachusetts to systematically explore neighborhood and certain other explanations for disproportionate impact.