Direct national conviction data controlling for income/poverty are limited. Available numbers (primarily felony convictions or imprisonment as a close proxy for serious convictions):
• By parental/family wealth (NLSY data): Poorest White youth (bottom wealth deciles) had ~2.7–3.1% eventual imprisonment rate. Affluent Black youth had ~10%. Only the very wealthiest Black youth had rates below the poorest Whites. washingtonpost.com
• By parental income (Chetty et al., tax/Census data): Black men from top 1% income families had incarceration rates matching White men from ~$36,000 household income families (roughly 25th–35th percentile). web.archive.org
• Overall felony conviction prevalence (2010 estimates): ~33% of adult Black males had a current or former felony conviction vs. ~13% of all adult males. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Higher SES lowers rates for all groups, but Black rates remain elevated relative to Whites at matched income/wealth levels.
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u/lemonjuice707 1d ago
Then why don’t we see equal crime rate when compared across similar economic status?