Studies suggest that the spatial distribution of punishment in the United States is shifting. This article analyzes variation in prison admissions across U.S. counties to deepen our understanding of the contemporary geography of punishment. While research on punishment generally treats economic and political theories of punishment as distinct, we draw on recent studies of penal attitudes to develop a theoretical argument regarding their possible interconnection. We then use Hierarchical Linear Modeling to test the hypothesis that conservatism, race, and disadvantage are associated with the use of prison and that these factors help to explain why prison admission rates are higher in rural and suburban counties than in urban ones, despite notably higher crime rates in the latter. The results indicate that nonurban counties send more people to prison than urban counties and that socioeconomic disadvantage, the size of the Black population, and conservatism are significant predictors of prison admissions after controlling for crime‐related problems. These findings suggest that poverty, race, and politics work in concert to shape the distribution of punishment across 21st century America.

中文翻译：

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了解惩罚的地方：21世纪美国的劣势，政治和监禁地理

研究表明，在美国，惩罚的空间分布正在发生变化。本文分析了美国各县的入狱情况，以加深我们对当代刑法地理的了解。虽然对刑罚的研究一般将经济和政治刑罚理论视为截然不同，但我们借鉴了最近对刑罚态度的研究，以发展有关其可能相互联系的理论论证。然后，我们使用分层线性建模来检验以下假设：保守性，种族和劣势与监狱的使用有关，这些因素有助于解释为什么农村和郊区县的监狱接纳率要比城市县高，尽管明显更高后者的犯罪率。结果表明，与城市县相比，非城市县将更多的人送入监狱，而控制犯罪相关问题后，社会经济劣势，黑人人口规模和保守主义是监狱入狱的重要预测因素。这些发现表明，贫穷，种族和政治共同作用，决定了整个21世纪美国的刑罚分配。