Educational Opportunity and the Carceral System: Sentencing Policies and Black Men's College Enrollment

Abstract

This paper explores whether the Federal Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which increased the disproportionate incarceration of young Black men, was also associated with changes in the likelihood of college enrollment for Black men in states with more punitive sentencing laws. I measure the association between the introduction of state sentencing laws, such as truth-in-sentencing (TIS), and college enrollment. These laws could have decreased the likelihood of Black male college enrollment by removing these men from the population in the years in which they would have attended college. To explore the impact of the passage of sentencing laws on college enrollment, I carry out a differences-in-differences analysis and an event study from 1992 to 2000. In the years after TIS passed, significant decreases occurred in the likelihood of college enrollment for Black young men when compared to the college enrollment of young White men in TIS states. However, there were no significant decreases when comparing college enrollment of young Black men in TIS states with enrollment for young Black men in non-TIS states. With respect to state sentencing schemes, voluntary guidelines, determinate sentences, presumptive recommended sentences, presumptive determinate sentences, and recommended determinate sentences were associated with a lower likelihood of college enrollment for Black men.