First Name:
Amber
Last Name:
Staklinski
Major Department:
Economics
Thesis Director:
Todd Cherry
Date of Thesis:
May 2012
Prison overcrowding has caused a multitude of problems in the United States and internationally. California’s prison conditions were so poor they were acclaimed to be a violation of the eighth amendment. European mass incarceration has caused a strong emergence of tuberculosis. These are just a few stories of the dangers associated with overcrowding. Studies have shown decreasing crime rates and increasing prison populations since the 1990s and it is becoming increasingly important to determine the cause of these high incarceration rates and prison overcrowding. Regression analysis was done using data collected on a state level and a country level to examine what is affecting incarceration rates and whether influences vary within subsections of a country. Many factors, such as GDP, Internet usage, and political variables were found to have a relationship with incarceration rates on both levels. Previous studies agree with these results that wealthier countries have higher incarceration rates. However, other studies and beliefs, such as the Policy Hypothesis were contradicted by the results indicating that fewer drug laws correlates with higher incarceration rates.