Ariel White

With the 2016 presidential election looming and record numbers of people—disproportionately people of color—behind bars, it seems more urgent than ever to consider how incarceration can shape civic engagement. Ariel White, a PhD candidate in political science, considers this problem by asking how people’s experiences behind bars impact future decisions to vote.

Although felon disenfranchisement has been a topic of discussion for a long time, White’s research focuses on the little-explored question of how misdemeanor jail sentences impact future voting. While the possible links between incarceration and voting have been the topic of considerable research already, White explains that scholars have had difficulty determining the exact nature of its mechanism. “There’s a prevailing sense that the people who are incarcerated are inherently different from those who don’t, and this is what accounts for their different voting behavior,” she explains.

Taking an innovative approach to interpreting big data, White has made strides in establishing a causal link between misdemeanor charges and voting behavior. She has found that this link varies based on the race of the defendant—because blacks are more likely to be incarcerated than whites, it is also more likely that they had been active citizens and voters prior to arrest.

White’s work contributes to our understanding of how structural inequities can adversely affect those who might otherwise be motivated to contribute their voices to the democratic process. As White says, “The question of how misdemeanor jail sentences impact future civic engagement affects the lives of many, many people in a way that has previously been ignored.”