Bass, Bernard M.

Dobbins, D. A.

English

Northwestern University Illinois, School of Law: Scholarly Commons

Journal of Criminal Law and CriminologyVolume 48 | Issue 5 Article 51958Effects of Unemployment on White and NegroPrison Admissions in LouisianaD. A. DobbinsBernard M. BassFollow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclcPart of the Criminal Law Commons, Criminology Commons, and the Criminology and CriminalJustice CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted forinclusion in Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology by an authorized editor of Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons.Recommended CitationD. A. Dobbins, Bernard M. Bass, Effects of Unemployment on White and Negro Prison Admissions in Louisiana, 48 J. Crim. L.Criminology & Police Sci. 522 (1957-1958)VERNON FOXNew York1 5, Pennsylvania 6, South Dakota 7 , andWisconsin'. While this group of fifteen Statesconstitutes less than one-third of the States in theunion, it includes, with the exception of NewJersey, all the States considered by correctionspeople to have the better correctional systems.The well-established State associations are theConnecticut Prison Association, the Prisoners'Aid Society of Maryland, the United PrisonAssociation of Massachusetts, the Prison Associa-tion of New York, the Pennsylvania PrisonSociety, and the Pennsylvania Citizens Associa-tion for Health and Welfare. The national organi-zations are The Osborne Association 9 and theJohn Howard Association 0 . The Osborne Associa-tion was a 1932 merger of the Welfare LeagueAssociation, Inc., (1915) and the National Societyof Penal Information, Inc., (1921), both foundedby the late Thomas Mott Osborne of New York.Organizations which had their origin in universitysettings are the Alabama Correctional ResearchAssociation, the Michigan Correctional Associa-tion, and the Florida Correctional Research As-sociation. While the Alabama and Florida groupsare incorporated and are available through theUniversity of Alabama and Florida State Uni-versity, respectively, the Michigan group istenuous and rises only in time of crisis from theDepartments of Sociology at the University ofMichigan and/or Wayne University. The groupsin California, Missouri, and Wisconsin are in-formal and small. Church groups were reportedfrom Kentucky and South Dakota and theireffectiveness is unknown.These pressure groups can demonstrate thepolitical advantage of prison reform throughzation traceable through the Departments of Sociologyat the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, or WayneUniversity, Detroit.14 Missouri State Correctional Association, addresschanging with the president, now at Medical Centerfor Federal Prisons, Springfield, Mo.1 Prison Association of New York, 135 E. 15th St.,New York City.16 Pennsylvania Prison Society, 311 S. Juniper St.,Philadelphia; and Pennsylvania Citizens Associationfor Health and Welfare, 1 North 13th St., Philadelphia."7 South Dakota Council of Churches, 718 Illinois,Huron, S. D.; and Sioux Falls Ministerial Association,Sioux Falls, S. D.18 International Prisoner's Aid Society, 125 E.Wells St., Milwaukee; and Wisconsin Service Associ-ation, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.11 The Osborne Association, 114 East 30th St., NewYork City.20John Howard Association, Suite 2258, 608 S.Dearborn St., Chicago, Illinois.letters to the editors, newspaper features, magazinearticles, talks to civic and church groups, and thesize of their own memberships to an extent that isconvincing to many politicians. The most suc-cessful organizations are long-standing, stablesocieties with good financial structure. The moresuccessful organizations have a bulletin or news-letter that keeps their membership informed,interested, and participating. Authority in theform of a reputable expert or group of expertswithin the membership is generally present in asuccessful organization, such as The OsborneAssociation with Austin H. MacCormick and thePrison Association of New York with E. R. Cass.Most important, the successful organizations havemembership indigenous to, residents of, interestedin, and qualified voters of their State. It is furthernoted that the successful associations have anactive but non-militant executive committee,acquainted with correctional theory and philosophyand close to the practical operation of correctionswithin their State.Several associations have a long-standingdemonstrable record of influencing legislativeaction regarding corrections. The Prison Associa-tion of New York submits a biennial report to theNew York legislature, including recommendationsfor legislation. The Connecticut Prison Society hassupervised probation in Connecticut since 1903,and has recently succeeded in convincing theConnecticut legislature to revise the correctionslaw, effective 1956, making the Connecticut law inaccordance with the recommendations of theSociety.It is uncertain whether or not there is a causalrelationship between the activity of private prisonassociations and progressive prison systems orwhether the associations arise in a sympatheticmilieu. Certainly, they tend to occur together.Prison associations have listed their accomplish-ments in their bulletins with confidence, withoutcontroversy, and there is reason to believe thatthey symbolize the political advantage in penalreform.SUMtARYIn summary, the function of private prisonsocieties is to encourage political leaders by display-ing the political advantage of the improvement ofcorrectional services. It is noted that in fifteenStates where there are private organizationsinterested in the improvement of correctional[Vol. 48CITIZENS' GROUPSservices, there are included all but one of theStates considered to have the most progressivecorrectional systems in the country. On the otherhand, with the exception of New Jersey, which wasobviously influenced by one of the nationalorganizations, the thirty-one States without anysuch private organizations possess none of theprograms considered to be outstanding. While itcannot be established whether the organizationcaused the correctional services to improve orwhether both existed in a sympathetic environ-ment, specific penal reform legislation in severalinstances can be shown to be the direct result ofthe activity of the prison society. It is very wellknown that the existence of reputable correctionalsystems and private prison societies tend to gotogether. A review of the experience of the Stateswith and without these private associations inter-ested in the improvement of correctional servicesindicates that penal reform comes when citizenscan demonstrate to their leaders the political ad-vantage of correctional improvement, and thatthis can best be demonstrated through an activecitizens' organization.1958]EFFECTS OF UNEMPLOYMENT ON WHITE AND NEGRO PRISONADMISSIONS IN LOUISIANAD. A. DOBBINS AND BERNARD M. BASSD. A. Dobbins is associated with the Louisiana Department of Institutions as Research Statistician.Earlier he had spent three years with private industry. He is author of several research reports in thearea of delinquency and statistics.Bernard M. Bass, who has served as Research Consultant to the State Department of Institutions,is Professor of Psychology at Louisiana State University. He has served as personnel consultant tovarious industries, and directed contract research for the USAF Aero-Medical Laboratories, and forthe Office of Naval Research Group Psychology Branch. He is author of articles in the areas ofleadership, statistics, personnel assessment and stress.These authors have already contributed to this Journal. See "IBM 'Mark Sense' Cards in Prisonclassification and Criminological Research," 47, 4 (November-December, 1956, pp 436 ff.)-EDITOR.One of the generally well-established principles ofcriminology is that adult crimes against propertytend to increase during periods of depression anddecrease during periods of prosperity (1, 5, 8, 9).This article concerns unemployment and prisoncommitments to the Louisiana State Penitentiaryand illustrates ethnic differences found in thisrelationship.The relationship between crime and the economyhas evolved from a variety of investigations. EarlyEuropean investigators concentrated primarily ontwo aspects of criminality (1, 7, 8). First, theyattempted to relate variations in crime andpunishment to class structure and social injusticesinherent in the broader socio-political milieu.Secondly, they made comparisons between fluctua-tions in criminal statistics and certain economicindices. The economic measure was often asingle index (i.e., grain production) related tocriminality within a specified area.American investigators have concentrated onthe ecological relation between crime and poverty.Emphasis has been placed not on poverty, per se,but on the correlates of poverty. A host of studieshave substantiated the association between crimerates and various economic measures such asincome, rent areas, social class, health conditions,etc. (3, 6, 7). These studies have been moreconclusive in relating crime to economy than havethe chronological studies. Sutherland and Cressey(7) summarize most of the significant findings ofboth types of research.Of the studies which attempt to relate crimeand the economy over periods of time, most use anaggregative index, such as the business cycle, asthe economic unit. Two American investigators,however, have investigated the relation betweenunemployment and prison admissions.In an analysis of the records of 300 Sing-Singinmates, Kleeck (5) found higher commitmentrates for the unemployed. Unemployment was theone predisposing circumstance found most fre-quently in crimes against property. In a similaranalysis of the records of 80 Negro Sing-Singinmates, Kleeck found that approximately 59 per-cent of the Negroes were not gainfully employedat the time of the offense as compared to approxi-mately 38 percent of the whites. Again unem-ployment was found to be significant in the casehistories, ranking above such other factors as "Badsocial and leisure habits, Emotionalism, Drink,Gambling, Gang, etc."Winslow (9) examined the yearly variations inunemployment and fluctuations in crime in Massa-chusetts from 1885 to 1929 and found a relationshipbetween unemployment and both property crimesand vagrancy. Kleeck obtained similar results forNew York state for the period 1830 to 1927.The purpose of this article is to report the find-ings of a similar, but short-termed chronologicalcomparison of unemployment and prison commit-ments to the Louisiana State Penitentiary and toshow the effects of another factor, ethnic dif-ferences, on this relationship.Total male prison admissions per year werecorrelated with weeks of compensated employ-ment per year for the fourteen-year period from1941 through 1954. The yearly fluctuations of bothindices, translated into standard scores (X - i)/o"for comparability, are shown in Figure 1. A9 UNEM.PLOJIIENT AND PRISON ADMISSIONSaCq -,c-PRISON ADMISSIONS (I)-31941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954Figure 1. Yearly fluctuations in admissions to the Louisiana State Penitentiary related to fluctuations inunemployment. (Louisiana Division of Employment Security, 1955)3a2N /PRISON ADMISSIONS (1)Q "TOTAL STATE POPULATION (3).1, "VI3= .69.31941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954Figure 2. Yearly fluctuations in admissions to the Louisiana State Penitentiary related to fluctuations inthe state population. (Statistical Abstract of the United States, No. 75, 1954)product-moment correlation of .78, significant atthe .1 percent level of confidence, was foundbetween the fluctuating indices for the fourteenyears. Total prison commitments were dividedinto white and Negro male admissions. Each wascorrelated with weeks of unemployment. Over 67percent' of the variance in white prison admissionswas accounted for by yearly fluctuations in un-employment according to the product-momentcorrelation of .82 found between the two measures.On the other hand, only 23 percent of the yearlyvariance in Negro admissions was associatedwith unemployment; a correlation of only .48 wasfound between them. White admissions appearedmuch more highly related to unemployment than'Negro admissions.Figure 1 shows that both unemployment andprison admissions were below average during theWorld War II years from 1942 through 1945.Since the absolute number of adult crimes isknown to drop during wartime because of mobiliza-I Coefficient of determination r2 X 100.tion (7), and since wartime employment is gen-erally high, it was believed that the obtained cor-relations may have been overestimated. Anattempt was made to eliminate the effects of warby considering only those years from 1946 through1954. Rank-difference (rho) coefficients obtainedfor these years were .62 between white admissionsand unemployment and only .05 for Negroes.While the general relationship between employ-ment and prison admissions was somewhat re-duced after the war, the differential effect for thetwo races was still very evident.Because the total population of Louisianaincreased by 13.5 percent over the 1940-1950decade (10), it was found that sheer populationincrease enhanced the relation between employ-ment and admissions due to the fact that therewere increasingly more people for both unemploy-ment and imprisonment. Figure 2 shows thecorrelation of .69 found between population andprison admissions (standard scores). Similarly, acorrelation of A9 was found between unemploy-1958]

Effects of Unemployment on White and Negro Prison Admissions in Louisiana

https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4640&amp;context=jclc

Effects of Unemployment on White and Negro Prison Admissions in Louisiana

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Northwestern University Illinois, School of Law: Scholarly Commons