Date of Submission

Spring 2023

Academic Program

Economics

Project Advisor 1

Pavlina R. Tcherneva

Abstract/Artist's Statement

The United States' intense history of racial violence has led to extreme racial injustice today. Incarceration has contributed to limiting race structures since its origin. Marijuana is a plant that has textural and recreational uses. Marijuana’s criminalization has reinforced incarceration and systemic racial oppression. This project aims to examine the role that cannabis charges play in the explosion of incarceration rates since the 1970s and the wage earning effects of incarceration. Incarceration rates have begun to decline in recent years, legalization further reverses inequities that the criminal justice system has inflicted on the labor market. In conjunction with the legalization of marijuana, support structures prevent incarceration and comprehensively promote employment. In particular, this project studies the history of marijuana’s legal position, rates of arrests and imprisonment, and finally how incarceration impacts mobility and earning equality.

Open Access Agreement

On-Campus only

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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