Christopher Muller
Biographic Data
| ID | 3739923 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Christopher Muller |
| GIVEN NAMES | Christopher |
| FAMILY NAME | Muller |
| SIGNATURE | MULLER C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Berkeley |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3855-3375 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 358 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 21 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Orlando Patterson’s Paradox of Freedom - David Scott and Orlando Patterson, The Paradox of Freedom
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Racial Inequality in the Prime of Life
In the first half of the twentieth century, deaths from infectious disease, especially among the very young, fell dramatically in American cities. However, as infant mortality fell and life expectancy rose, racial inequality in urban infectious disease mortality grew. In this paper, we show that the fall in mortality and the rise in racial inequality in mortality reflected two countervailing processes. The dramatic decline in infant mortality fro…
Racial and Class Inequality in US Incarceration in the Early Twenty-First Century
The relative importance of racial and class inequality in incarceration in the United States has recently become the subject of much debate. In this paper, we seek to give this debate a stronger empirical foundation. First, we update previous research on racial and class inequality in people’s likelihood of being imprisoned. Then, we examine racial and class inequality in people’s risk of having a family member imprisoned or living in a high-impr…
The Political Economy of Incarceration in the Cotton South, 1910-1925
A large theoretical literature in sociology connects increases in incarceration to contractions in the demand for labor. But previous research on how the labor market affects incarceration is often functionalist and seldom causal. This article estimates the effect of a shock to the southern agricultural labor market during a time when planters exerted a clear influence over whether workers or potential workers were incarcerated. From 1915 to 1920…
Regional and Racial Inequality in Infectious Disease Mortality in U.S. Cities, 1900–1948
In the first half of the twentieth century, the rate of death from infectious disease in the United States fell precipitously. Although this decline is well-known and well-documented, there is surprisingly little evidence about whether it took place uniformly across the regions of the United States. We use data on infectious disease deaths from all reporting U.S. cities to describe regional patterns in the decline of urban infectious mortality fr…
What Percentage of Americans Have Ever Had a Family Member Incarcerated
What percentage of Americans have ever had a family member incarcerated? To answer this question, we designed the Family History of Incarceration Survey (FamHIS). The survey was administered in the summer of 2018 by NORC at the University of Chicago using their AmeriSpeak Panel. It was funded by FWD.us, which released a separate report using the data. The data show that 45 percent of Americans have ever had an immediate family member incarcerated…
Environmental Inequality
In this article, we review evidence from the social and medical sciences on the causes and effects of lead exposure. We argue that lead exposure is an important subject for sociological analysis because it is socially stratified and has important social consequences-consequences that themselves depend in part on children's social environments. We present a model of environmental inequality over the life course to guide an agenda for future resear…
Freedom and Convict Leasing in the Postbellum South
In 1868, the state of Georgia began punishing convicts by leasing them to private companies. Georgia’s transition from penitentiary confinement to convict leasing coincided with a shift in the composition of its inmates. Fifteen years after the Civil War, African-Americans in Georgia were imprisoned at a rate more than 12 times that of whites. This article finds that black men were most likely to be imprisoned in the convict lease system where th…
Tenancy, Marriage, and the Boll Weevil Infestation, 1892–1930
In the early twentieth century, the cotton-growing regions of the U.S. South were dominated by families of tenant farmers. Tenant farming created opportunities and incentives for prospective tenants to marry at young ages. These opportunities and incentives especially affected African Americans, who had few alternatives to working as tenants. Using complete-count Census of Population data from 1900–1930 and Census of Agriculture data from 1889–19…
Geographic Variation in the Cumulative Risk of Imprisonment and Parental Imprisonment in the United States
This article reports estimates of the cumulative risk of imprisonment and parental imprisonment for demographic groups in four regions and four states. Regional and state-level cumulative risks were markedly higher for African Americans and Latinos than for whites. African Americans faced the highest cumulative risks of imprisonment in the Midwest, Northeast, and two southern states. Latinos were most likely to serve time in state prison in the W…
Lead exposure and violent crime in the early twentieth century
Desert Ethics
Additional informationNotes on contributorsChristopher MüllerChristopher John Muüller is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for Critical and Cultural Theory, Cardiff University. He teaches Critical Theory, American Literature, and Ancient Philosophy and Literature at Cardiff University and at the University of Bristol. The main themes his current research addresses are: the intersection of bodily feeling, ethics and agency; Emotion and lit…
Tenancy and African American Marriage in the Postbellum South
The pervasiveness of tenancy in the postbellum South had countervailing effects on marriage between African Americans. Tenancy placed severe constraints on African American women’s ability to find independent agricultural work. Freedwomen confronted not only planters’ reluctance to contract directly with women but also whites’ refusal to sell land to African Americans. Marriage consequently became one of African American women’s few viable routes…
Mass Imprisonment and Trust in the Law
This article examines the relationship between two facets of mass imprisonment-its novel comparative and historical scale and its pervasiveness in the lives of African Americans-and surveys respondents' beliefs about the harshness of the courts, and bias in the courts or among police. Analyses of national survey data show that as states' incarceration rates increased, so too did the probability that residents believed that courts were too harsh. …
Punishment and Inequality
Mass Incarceration, Macrosociology, and the Poor
The U.S. prison and jail population has grown fivefold in the 40 years since the early 1970s. The aggregate consequences of the growth in the penal system are widely claimed but have not been closely studied. We survey evidence for the aggregate relationship among the incarceration rate, employment rates, single-parenthood, public opinion, and crime. Employment among very low-skilled men has declined with rising incarceration. Punitive sentiment …
Northward Migration and the Rise of Racial Disparity in American Incarceration, 1880-1950
Of all facets of American racial inequality studied by social scientists, racial disparity in incarceration has proved one of the most difficult to explain. This article traces a portion of the rise of racial inequality in incarceration in northern and southern states to increasing rates of African-American migration to the North between 1880 and 1950. It employs three analytical strategies. First, it introduces a decomposition to assess the rela…
Mass Imprisonment and Inequality in Health and Family Life
In response to drastic increases and enduring disparities in American imprisonment, researchers have produced an expansive literature on the effects of mass imprisonment on inequality in America. We discuss this literature in three parts. First, we consider the obstacles to estimating the effects of imprisonment on individuals and to using those estimates to calculate the macrolevel impact of incarceration. Second, we review existing literature o…
Ethnomethodology and Consequences
The War on Crime as Precursor to the War on Terror
The institute of economic affairs
The Institute of Economic Affairs was founded in 1955, as a research educational charity, to examine the role of ‘markets and pricing systems as technical devices for registering preferences and apportioning resources’. The IEA is financed by a series of voluntary contributions, sales of publications and conference fees, but has ensured that it is not over‐dependant on a particular source of income to guarantee academic independence. The IEA bega…
Mass Imprisonment and Inequality in Health and Family Life
In response to drastic increases and enduring disparities in American imprisonment, researchers have produced an expansive literature on the effects of mass imprisonment on inequality in America. We discuss this literature in three parts. First, we consider the obstacles to estimating the effects of imprisonment on individuals and to using those estimates to calculate the macrolevel impact of incarceration. Second, we review existing literature o…
What Percentage of Americans Have Ever Had a Family Member Incarcerated
What percentage of Americans have ever had a family member incarcerated? To answer this question, we designed the Family History of Incarceration Survey (FamHIS). The survey was administered in the summer of 2018 by NORC at the University of Chicago using their AmeriSpeak Panel. It was funded by FWD.us, which released a separate report using the data. The data show that 45 percent of Americans have ever had an immediate family member incarcerated…
Environmental Inequality
In this article, we review evidence from the social and medical sciences on the causes and effects of lead exposure. We argue that lead exposure is an important subject for sociological analysis because it is socially stratified and has important social consequences-consequences that themselves depend in part on children's social environments. We present a model of environmental inequality over the life course to guide an agenda for future resear…
Northward Migration and the Rise of Racial Disparity in American Incarceration, 1880-1950
Of all facets of American racial inequality studied by social scientists, racial disparity in incarceration has proved one of the most difficult to explain. This article traces a portion of the rise of racial inequality in incarceration in northern and southern states to increasing rates of African-American migration to the North between 1880 and 1950. It employs three analytical strategies. First, it introduces a decomposition to assess the rela…
Mass Imprisonment and Trust in the Law
This article examines the relationship between two facets of mass imprisonment-its novel comparative and historical scale and its pervasiveness in the lives of African Americans-and surveys respondents' beliefs about the harshness of the courts, and bias in the courts or among police. Analyses of national survey data show that as states' incarceration rates increased, so too did the probability that residents believed that courts were too harsh. …
Mass Incarceration, Macrosociology, and the Poor
The U.S. prison and jail population has grown fivefold in the 40 years since the early 1970s. The aggregate consequences of the growth in the penal system are widely claimed but have not been closely studied. We survey evidence for the aggregate relationship among the incarceration rate, employment rates, single-parenthood, public opinion, and crime. Employment among very low-skilled men has declined with rising incarceration. Punitive sentiment …
Freedom and Convict Leasing in the Postbellum South
In 1868, the state of Georgia began punishing convicts by leasing them to private companies. Georgia’s transition from penitentiary confinement to convict leasing coincided with a shift in the composition of its inmates. Fifteen years after the Civil War, African-Americans in Georgia were imprisoned at a rate more than 12 times that of whites. This article finds that black men were most likely to be imprisoned in the convict lease system where th…
Geographic Variation in the Cumulative Risk of Imprisonment and Parental Imprisonment in the United States
This article reports estimates of the cumulative risk of imprisonment and parental imprisonment for demographic groups in four regions and four states. Regional and state-level cumulative risks were markedly higher for African Americans and Latinos than for whites. African Americans faced the highest cumulative risks of imprisonment in the Midwest, Northeast, and two southern states. Latinos were most likely to serve time in state prison in the W…
Tenancy and African American Marriage in the Postbellum South
The pervasiveness of tenancy in the postbellum South had countervailing effects on marriage between African Americans. Tenancy placed severe constraints on African American women’s ability to find independent agricultural work. Freedwomen confronted not only planters’ reluctance to contract directly with women but also whites’ refusal to sell land to African Americans. Marriage consequently became one of African American women’s few viable routes…
Regional and Racial Inequality in Infectious Disease Mortality in U.S. Cities, 1900–1948
In the first half of the twentieth century, the rate of death from infectious disease in the United States fell precipitously. Although this decline is well-known and well-documented, there is surprisingly little evidence about whether it took place uniformly across the regions of the United States. We use data on infectious disease deaths from all reporting U.S. cities to describe regional patterns in the decline of urban infectious mortality fr…
Lead exposure and violent crime in the early twentieth century
Desert Ethics
Additional informationNotes on contributorsChristopher MüllerChristopher John Muüller is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for Critical and Cultural Theory, Cardiff University. He teaches Critical Theory, American Literature, and Ancient Philosophy and Literature at Cardiff University and at the University of Bristol. The main themes his current research addresses are: the intersection of bodily feeling, ethics and agency; Emotion and lit…
Tenancy, Marriage, and the Boll Weevil Infestation, 1892–1930
In the early twentieth century, the cotton-growing regions of the U.S. South were dominated by families of tenant farmers. Tenant farming created opportunities and incentives for prospective tenants to marry at young ages. These opportunities and incentives especially affected African Americans, who had few alternatives to working as tenants. Using complete-count Census of Population data from 1900–1930 and Census of Agriculture data from 1889–19…
The War on Crime as Precursor to the War on Terror
The Political Economy of Incarceration in the Cotton South, 1910-1925
A large theoretical literature in sociology connects increases in incarceration to contractions in the demand for labor. But previous research on how the labor market affects incarceration is often functionalist and seldom causal. This article estimates the effect of a shock to the southern agricultural labor market during a time when planters exerted a clear influence over whether workers or potential workers were incarcerated. From 1915 to 1920…
Racial Inequality in the Prime of Life
In the first half of the twentieth century, deaths from infectious disease, especially among the very young, fell dramatically in American cities. However, as infant mortality fell and life expectancy rose, racial inequality in urban infectious disease mortality grew. In this paper, we show that the fall in mortality and the rise in racial inequality in mortality reflected two countervailing processes. The dramatic decline in infant mortality fro…
The institute of economic affairs
The Institute of Economic Affairs was founded in 1955, as a research educational charity, to examine the role of ‘markets and pricing systems as technical devices for registering preferences and apportioning resources’. The IEA is financed by a series of voluntary contributions, sales of publications and conference fees, but has ensured that it is not over‐dependant on a particular source of income to guarantee academic independence. The IEA bega…
The institute of economic affairs
The Institute of Economic Affairs was founded in 1955, as a research educational charity, to examine the role of ‘markets and pricing systems as technical devices for registering preferences and apportioning resources’. The IEA is financed by a series of voluntary contributions, sales of publications and conference fees, but has ensured that it is not over‐dependant on a particular source of income to guarantee academic independence. The IEA bega…
The War on Crime as Precursor to the War on Terror
Mass Imprisonment and Inequality in Health and Family Life
In response to drastic increases and enduring disparities in American imprisonment, researchers have produced an expansive literature on the effects of mass imprisonment on inequality in America. We discuss this literature in three parts. First, we consider the obstacles to estimating the effects of imprisonment on individuals and to using those estimates to calculate the macrolevel impact of incarceration. Second, we review existing literature o…
Ethnomethodology and Consequences
Northward Migration and the Rise of Racial Disparity in American Incarceration, 1880-1950
Of all facets of American racial inequality studied by social scientists, racial disparity in incarceration has proved one of the most difficult to explain. This article traces a portion of the rise of racial inequality in incarceration in northern and southern states to increasing rates of African-American migration to the North between 1880 and 1950. It employs three analytical strategies. First, it introduces a decomposition to assess the rela…
Punishment and Inequality
Mass Incarceration, Macrosociology, and the Poor
The U.S. prison and jail population has grown fivefold in the 40 years since the early 1970s. The aggregate consequences of the growth in the penal system are widely claimed but have not been closely studied. We survey evidence for the aggregate relationship among the incarceration rate, employment rates, single-parenthood, public opinion, and crime. Employment among very low-skilled men has declined with rising incarceration. Punitive sentiment …
Mass Imprisonment and Trust in the Law
This article examines the relationship between two facets of mass imprisonment-its novel comparative and historical scale and its pervasiveness in the lives of African Americans-and surveys respondents' beliefs about the harshness of the courts, and bias in the courts or among police. Analyses of national survey data show that as states' incarceration rates increased, so too did the probability that residents believed that courts were too harsh. …
Desert Ethics
Additional informationNotes on contributorsChristopher MüllerChristopher John Muüller is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for Critical and Cultural Theory, Cardiff University. He teaches Critical Theory, American Literature, and Ancient Philosophy and Literature at Cardiff University and at the University of Bristol. The main themes his current research addresses are: the intersection of bodily feeling, ethics and agency; Emotion and lit…
Tenancy and African American Marriage in the Postbellum South
The pervasiveness of tenancy in the postbellum South had countervailing effects on marriage between African Americans. Tenancy placed severe constraints on African American women’s ability to find independent agricultural work. Freedwomen confronted not only planters’ reluctance to contract directly with women but also whites’ refusal to sell land to African Americans. Marriage consequently became one of African American women’s few viable routes…
Geographic Variation in the Cumulative Risk of Imprisonment and Parental Imprisonment in the United States
This article reports estimates of the cumulative risk of imprisonment and parental imprisonment for demographic groups in four regions and four states. Regional and state-level cumulative risks were markedly higher for African Americans and Latinos than for whites. African Americans faced the highest cumulative risks of imprisonment in the Midwest, Northeast, and two southern states. Latinos were most likely to serve time in state prison in the W…
Lead exposure and violent crime in the early twentieth century
Tenancy, Marriage, and the Boll Weevil Infestation, 1892–1930
In the early twentieth century, the cotton-growing regions of the U.S. South were dominated by families of tenant farmers. Tenant farming created opportunities and incentives for prospective tenants to marry at young ages. These opportunities and incentives especially affected African Americans, who had few alternatives to working as tenants. Using complete-count Census of Population data from 1900–1930 and Census of Agriculture data from 1889–19…
Environmental Inequality
In this article, we review evidence from the social and medical sciences on the causes and effects of lead exposure. We argue that lead exposure is an important subject for sociological analysis because it is socially stratified and has important social consequences-consequences that themselves depend in part on children's social environments. We present a model of environmental inequality over the life course to guide an agenda for future resear…
Freedom and Convict Leasing in the Postbellum South
In 1868, the state of Georgia began punishing convicts by leasing them to private companies. Georgia’s transition from penitentiary confinement to convict leasing coincided with a shift in the composition of its inmates. Fifteen years after the Civil War, African-Americans in Georgia were imprisoned at a rate more than 12 times that of whites. This article finds that black men were most likely to be imprisoned in the convict lease system where th…
Regional and Racial Inequality in Infectious Disease Mortality in U.S. Cities, 1900–1948
In the first half of the twentieth century, the rate of death from infectious disease in the United States fell precipitously. Although this decline is well-known and well-documented, there is surprisingly little evidence about whether it took place uniformly across the regions of the United States. We use data on infectious disease deaths from all reporting U.S. cities to describe regional patterns in the decline of urban infectious mortality fr…
What Percentage of Americans Have Ever Had a Family Member Incarcerated
What percentage of Americans have ever had a family member incarcerated? To answer this question, we designed the Family History of Incarceration Survey (FamHIS). The survey was administered in the summer of 2018 by NORC at the University of Chicago using their AmeriSpeak Panel. It was funded by FWD.us, which released a separate report using the data. The data show that 45 percent of Americans have ever had an immediate family member incarcerated…
Racial and Class Inequality in US Incarceration in the Early Twenty-First Century
The relative importance of racial and class inequality in incarceration in the United States has recently become the subject of much debate. In this paper, we seek to give this debate a stronger empirical foundation. First, we update previous research on racial and class inequality in people’s likelihood of being imprisoned. Then, we examine racial and class inequality in people’s risk of having a family member imprisoned or living in a high-impr…
The Political Economy of Incarceration in the Cotton South, 1910-1925
A large theoretical literature in sociology connects increases in incarceration to contractions in the demand for labor. But previous research on how the labor market affects incarceration is often functionalist and seldom causal. This article estimates the effect of a shock to the southern agricultural labor market during a time when planters exerted a clear influence over whether workers or potential workers were incarcerated. From 1915 to 1920…
Racial Inequality in the Prime of Life
In the first half of the twentieth century, deaths from infectious disease, especially among the very young, fell dramatically in American cities. However, as infant mortality fell and life expectancy rose, racial inequality in urban infectious disease mortality grew. In this paper, we show that the fall in mortality and the rise in racial inequality in mortality reflected two countervailing processes. The dramatic decline in infant mortality fro…
Orlando Patterson’s Paradox of Freedom - David Scott and Orlando Patterson, The Paradox of Freedom
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Sociology (17 works) · Criminology (10 works) · Economics (10 works) · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis (9 works) · Political science (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Crime Patterns and Interventions (7 works) · Demography (7 works) · Geography (7 works) · Psychology (7 works)