Comparative studies on incarceration rely heavily on demand-based explanations, suggesting that prison rates are driven by sentencing practices and the criminalization of certain activities. In turn, such theories are often tested against the backdrop of factors that regulate the supply of offenders and facilities. We agree that supply and demand factors may be proximate causes of prison population sizes, but that socio-economic development is central to shaping the larger narrative. In this study, we identify a “criminological Kuznets curve,” whereby the association between incarceration rates and economic development is curvilinear, reaching its peak among middle-income countries. Drawing from a sample of 680 observations across 111 countries during the 2000 – 2015 period, we find that incarceration is strongly associated with factors rooted in development, including crime rates, the age structure of the population, and democratization. We find that human rights conditions are positively associated with incarceration, which we interpret as a shift away from more severe forms of punishment (e.g., death penalty, torture) as societies modernize. Meanwhile, the effects of several other predictors (government expenditures and income inequality) are conditioned by a country’s level of development. Finally, when adding country fixed effects, we show that economic growth increases prison rates among low-income countries, but reduces them among affluent nations, which directly contributes to the criminological Kuznets curve. Overall, we conclude that prison populations are shaped by both supply and demand factors, but that development processes help organize these relationships.

中文翻译：

---

发展的铁笼：对监禁的跨国分析，2000 年至 2015 年

关于监禁的比较研究在很大程度上依赖于基于需求的解释，这表明监禁率是由量刑实践和某些活动的刑事定罪驱动的。反过来，这些理论经常在监管罪犯和设施供应的因素的背景下进行检验。我们同意供求因素可能是监狱人口规模的直接原因，但社会经济发展是塑造更大叙事的核心。在这项研究中，我们确定了“犯罪学库兹涅茨曲线”，即监禁率与经济发展之间的关联呈曲线状，在中等收入国家中达到顶峰。从 2000 年至 2015 年期间 111 个国家/地区的 680 次观察样本中抽取，我们发现监禁与植根于发展的因素密切相关，包括犯罪率、人口年龄结构和民主化。我们发现人权状况与监禁呈正相关，我们将其解释为随着社会的现代化，对更严厉的惩罚形式（例如死刑、酷刑）的转变。同时，其他几个预测因素（政府支出和收入不平等）的影响取决于一个国家的发展水平。最后，当加上国家固定效应时，我们表明经济增长会增加低收入国家的监狱率，但会降低富裕国家的监狱率，这直接促成了犯罪学库兹涅茨曲线。总体而言，我们得出结论，监狱人口受供求因素共同影响，