This article employs Blumstein’s methodology and county-level data from two Midwestern states—Missouri and Iowa—to investigate whether racial proportions in felony arrests are reflected in prison admissions. Following Blumstein, we assume that unexplained disproportionality may signal bias and use urbanization and the liberation hypotheses to generate and test several theoretical claims. These claims predict more explained disproportionality in prison admissions for urban areas than rural locations and an inverse relation between crime seriousness and disproportionality. Results were mixed. In Iowa, more serious crimes such as murder, rape, and armed robbery were associated with less unexplained disproportionality than less serious crimes. However, this was not true in Missouri. Additionally, results show very little unexplained disproportionality in rural areas of each state, but significant amounts in urban locales. We discuss implications of these findings.
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