Incarceration in Nineteenth- Century U.S. Cities

This article argues that social control efforts directed against minorities by dominant groups increase in response to elevated group threat. We offer a general theoretical argu-ment suggesting that competitive threat from minorities shapes a broad spectrum of social control responses. To gain theoretical lever-age over these issues, we compare effects of group threat on levels of incarceration for two groups—African Americans and foreign-born whites—in the same cities over the same period. Our article offers a three-part explana-tion for why rising levels of perceived group threat from African Americans and foreign-born whites, and ensuing efforts at social control, likely stem from different conditions. First, social control of African Americans increased where labor market competition between African Americans and whites chal-lenged racial barriers. Second, social control of foreign-born whites increased where they were more concentrated in poverty. Con-versely, we expect efforts to control foreign-born whites will be lower where they were not poor and thus more easily assimilated to a white identity