The Growth of Incarceration in the United States Exploring Causes and Consequences (2014) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
9 Consequences for Families and Children
9 Consequences for Families and Children
Pages 260-280
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From page 260... ...
. The racial and ethnic disparities of the prison population are reflected in the disparate rates of parental incarceration.
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From page 261... ...
. In addition, incarcerated mothers are more likely than incarcerated fathers to have come from single-parent households (42 percent versus 17 percent in state prisons, and 52 percent versus 19 percent in federal prisons)
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From page 262... ...
Men with a history of incarceration are less likely to marry or cohabit and more likely to form unstable partnerships than those who have never been incarcerated, and children of incarcerated fathers tend to exhibit more problems in childhood and adolescence. The picture is not entirely negative, however.
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From page 263... ...
Ethnographic studies generally do not allow for statements about causality; however, they describe the experiences of women with incarcerated partners and their children and reveal potential mechanisms for explaining the link between incarceration and family well-being. A key goal of our assessment is to determine whether the use of more complex statistical methods produces findings that are consistent with those from ethnographic studies and quantitative analyses using simpler statistical methods.
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From page 264... ...
Moreover, Goffman (2009) finds that former prisoners and men on parole may feel the need to avoid or carefully navigate their relationships with partners who may use the criminal justice system as a way to control their behavior (e.g., a woman may threaten to call her partner's parole officer if he continues arriving home late, becomes involved with another woman, or does not contribute enough money to the household)
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From page 265... ...
Two studies use state-level variables to examine how variation in marriage market conditions due to increasing incarceration rates affect women's marriage and fertility. Using state-level, race-specific incarceration rates as an indicator of marriage market conditions, Charles and Luoh (2010)
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From page 266... ...
finds a weak negative effect of male incarceration on black women's probability of marriage and a strong negative effect on young black women's nonmarital childbearing. This study also finds a positive link between men's incarceration and women's education and employment.
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From page 267... ...
. Consistent with the ethnographic literature, quantitative studies indicate that the families of men with an incarceration history experience a good deal of economic insecurity and hardship, resulting in greater use of public assistance among mothers and children.
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From page 268... ...
Employing several strategies for determining causality, including fixed effects models, a lagged dependent variable, and a placebo test used to examine whether future incarceration is related to current behaviors, Schwartz-Soicher and colleagues (2011) find strong evidence that paternal incarceration leads to increased material hardship for mothers and children, measured as mothers' reports of the difficulty faced by their family in meeting basic needs.
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From page 269... ...
Turney and Wildeman (2012) use a variety of estimation strategies, including lagged dependent variables, fixed effects, propensity score matching, and conditioning on ever-incarcerated fathers.
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A major limitation is that the analyses for incarcerated fathers are based on one source of data -- the Fragile Families Study. Child Well-Being Negative outcomes for children are commonly reported in open-ended interviews with fathers and their families.
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From page 271... ...
finds a positive association between fathers' incarceration and externalizing behavior and attention problems at age 5. Using a series of placebo tests, fixed effects models, and propensity score matching, Wildeman (2010)
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find that parental incarceration is not associated with boys' marijuana use but is positively associated with theft; in this study, the associations are stronger among white than among black youth. Parenting and peer processes following parental incarceration explained about half of the association.
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From page 273... ...
Using propensity score matching, Walker (2011) finds a negative effect of incarceration on cognitive ability at age 5, whereas Haskins (2012)
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From page 274... ...
A few recent studies use longitudinal data and more rigorous methods to examine the effect of maternal incarceration on child academic performance, housing arrangements, and behavioral outcomes. Using data from two large samples of children in Chicago public schools and propensity score and fixed effects modeling techniques, Cho (2009a, 2009b)
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From page 275... ...
While these studies provide rich descriptions of the family lives of men and women with an incarceration history, and while they generate a multitude of intriguing hypotheses, their findings may not be generalizable to families in other cities or other parts of the country. Second, although a number of more recent quantitative studies use probability samples of the national population, these studies are based on only three data sets: the Fragile Families Study, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics.
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From page 276... ...
The failure to take account of characteristics that affect incarceration as well as social and economic hardships leads to what researchers call "omitted variable bias." This problem is endemic in the literature on incarceration effects. The best way to deal with omitted variable bias is to run an experiment in which people are randomly assigned to incarceration status.
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From page 277... ...
but different incarceration experiences to see whether they differ. Although this approach does not deal with omitted variable bias -- propensity scores are based on observed variables only -- it has certain advantages over standard regression analyses and may yield more accurate estimates of the association between incarceration and outcomes of interest.
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From page 278... ...
Aggregate Effects Little attention has to date been paid to estimating the aggregate effects of high rates of incarceration on family stability, poverty and economic well-being, and child well-being. Given that incarceration is concentrated among men with low education, one might expect that recent trends in incarceration have affected aggregate poverty rates as well as trends in family structure and intergenerational mobility.
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From page 279... ...
Recent surveys indicate that roughly 4 of 10 incarcerated fathers report living with their children prior to incarceration. Of interest, although father's incarceration is associated with poorer grades and lower educational attainment, it is not associated with lower cognitive ability.
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From page 280... ...
280 THE GROWTH OF INCARCERATION parent's incarceration as the extent of incarceration has expanded, but that hypothesis has not been tested. There remain unanswered questions about the aggregate effects of the incarceration buildup.
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