NCJ Number
101890
Journal
Crime and Social Justice Issue: 24 Dated: (1985) Pages: 187-209
Date Published
1985
Length
23 pages
Annotation
This study explored the relationship between race and imprisonment between 1870 and 1981 using North Carolina State prison reports and other historiographical materials.
Abstract
The percentages of blacks in the State prison population ranged from 74 percent at the opening of the prison in 1870, to 90 percent in 1878, and to a low of 51 percent in 1930. A general continuation of this downward trend is found in the years following prison consolidation in 1933. A 7-percent increase in the black prison population following consolidation (1934) suggests that the County prison system may have held proportionally more blacks at that point than did the State system. After a slight upturn during the mid and late 1930's, the rate of black imprisonment levels off and remains relatively stable between 1943 and 1981. Imprisonment rates per 100,000 for black and white residents show the black rate ranged from a low of 20 in 1870 to a high of 680 in 1960, when the rate for whites also peaked. These trends in black imprisonment are discussed in terms of social control theory and the role of blacks as both a threat to the existing system of government and class in the antebellum South and their potential as prison labor resource. 11 notes and 42 references.