Caroline Stafford
Pronouns: She/Her
Research Mentor(s): Benjamin Goehring
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Political Science and Public Policy / LSA
Program: UROP
Session: Session 1 (9:00am – 9:50am)
Authors: Benjamin Goehring, Daniel Chuang, Caroline Stafford, Eleanor Schlick
Abstract
The United States spends more than 80 billion dollars on incarceration per year. Nearly 2 million people are imprisoned in the United States – the largest incarcerated population in the world – and approximately half are housed in prisons operated by the U.S. states. Despite the size and scope of the U.S. state carceral system, we know relatively little about state correctional facilities’ operation and staffing. We begin to fill this gap by examining the racial and political composition of state correctional officers in two states: Mississippi and Arkansas. Using personnel data on state employees in these states, we examine how correctional officers’ race and sex correlate with rank and salary. More pointedly, we merge our personnel files with Census data and a copy of the U.S. voter file to examine how the demographic and political composition of correctional officers compares to the areas surrounding the prisons where they work. This analysis serves an important role in understanding why, across different states, people opt to work at correctional facilities, and provides a stepping stone for further investigations into how race and partisanship impact the behavior of correctional officers.
