Unemployment and the incarceration of pretrial defendants

The Rusche and Kirchheimer thesis, which argues that labor market marginality engenders larger confinement populations, has amassed substantial empirical support in recent years. However, there still remains the question whether these studies represent a valid empirical test of the Rusche and Kirchheimer thesis because most prior research relies on convicted offender data. A proper test of this thesis must consider pretrial defendants who more accurately represent the surplus labor population. To address this problem, this dissertation uses longitudinal data calibrated in monthly intervals to examine the impact of unemployment rates, arrest rates, court processing factors, jail capacity rates, jail population rates, judge rates, and jail staff rates on pretrial misdemeanor and felony jail incarceration rates for Florida (1986-1991).