Document Type
Article
Abstract
Racial segregation and violent crime are both important predictors of jurisdiction-level criminal justice outcomes, yet little research has examined their influences on front-end detention patterns and how they may interact to shape local punishment practices. The current study uses official sources and Vera Institute of Justice data spanning 1496 decennial county-years (374 counties from 1980 to 2010) to examine the independent and combined effects of county-level racial segregation and violent crime on pretrial detention rates. Drawing on group threat and minority neglect arguments, we find that high segregation levels are associated with neglect, especially in violent areas. Reduced segregation between Black and White populations, however, is linked with increased punishment, particularly in areas with high levels of violence.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Publication Info
Published in Punishment & Society, 2026.
Rights
© The Author(s) 2026. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
APA Citation
Vaughn, P. E., & Williams, J. H. (2026). Social control and neglect at a crossroads: Unpacking the interactive effects of residential segregation and violence on pretrial detention. Punishment & Society.https://doi.org/10.1177/14624745261433556