Occasional Series on Prison Reentry: The Growth of Incarceration in the United States

2. Occasional Series on Prison Reentry: The Growth of Incarceration in the United States Children of the Prison Boom: Mass Incarceration and Childhood Wellbeing Sara Wakefield School of Criminal Justice Rutgers University sara.wakefield@rutgers.edu

3. Acknowledgements and More Information • Frequent Collaborator: • Chris Wildeman (Cornell) • Also see the work of Kristin Turney(UC-Irvine) • Annotated Bibliography of Additional Research: • www.johnjayresearch.org/pri

4. Plan of talk • Linking Mass Incarceration and Childhood Wellbeing • Individual-Level Effects of Parental Incarceration on Children • Implications for Social Inequality and Long-Term Harm • Undoing the Damage

5. 1. Mass Incarceration Linking Mass Incarceration and Children

6. What is mass incarceration? • Historically novel, comparatively extreme. • Common life experience for the urban poor. • Resulting in the “systematic incarceration of whole groups.”

9. International Comparison of Incarceration Rates

10. Risk of imprisonment by age 30-34: Men born 1945-49, 1970-74

11. Source: Western & Pettit, 2009

12. 2. Parental Incarceration Effects Mental Health and Behavioral Problems, Homelessness, Infant Mortality, and Caregiver-Child Relationships

13. Summary of Findings • For Fathers: • Global and consequential • Nearly always in the direction of harm for non-violent fathers • For Mothers • Variable and less consistent • As often protective as harmful? • Larger Implications • The Concentration of Incarceration in Families • Social Inequality and Race Gaps in Childhood Wellbeing

14. Focal Outcomes • Mental Health and Behavioral Problems: Allchildrenexperiencesomeofthem,andthey predicteverythingfromdropouttoteenpregnancytocrime • Homelessness: Goodinsight intomostmarginalizedchildren, andmassiveincreasesinblack-whitegapssince1980. • Infant Mortality: Consideredthebestmeasureofchildhealth,andblack-whiteinequalitieshavestubbornlyheldsteady. • Caregiver-Child Relationship: Possible important mechanism

15. Mental Health and Behavioral Problems

16. Aggression, Infant Mortality, and Childhood Homelessness

17. Positive and Negative Parenting Behaviors and Conflict Resolution *

18. Physically Aggressive Behaviors by Crime Type and Abuse History

19. Infant Mortality

20. Summary of Individual-Level Findings • Paternal incarceration increases: • Behavioral problems • Physically aggressive behaviors • Homelessness • Infant mortality • Risk of conflict, abuse, and neglect by caregivers • Effects usually absent in cases of a violent father or a history of domestic abuse in the family • The incarceration of a non-violent father is a global harm for children

21. 3. Aggregating Up Harms The Concentration of Incarceration in Families and Social Inequality

22. Race Differences in the Concentration of Incarceration in Families

23. The Contribution of Paternal Incarceration for Racial Inequality in Childhood Wellbeing

24. The Contribution of Paternal Incarceration for Racial Inequality in Childhood Wellbeing

25. 4. Undoing the Damage Summary and Unanswered Questions

26. The usual suspects • WhenwethinkabouttheforcesthatshapewellbeingamongAmericanchildren,wetendtothinkmostly aboutthingslikeneighborhoods,schools,andfamilies. • The penal system ought to be added to the list.

27. Undoing the Damage • Interventions best found outside of the criminal justice system • Enhancing social safety net • Strengthening interventions in the poorest neighborhoods to reduce the damaging effects of crime and incarceration • *Smart* reductions in the incarceration rate • For children with currently incarcerated parents • To reduce the likelihood of the experience for children at risk for parental incarceration

28. Thanks for your time! • Questions?

29. Additional Source Material • Wakefield, Sara. 2014. “Accentuating the Positive or Eliminating the Negative? Father Incarceration and Caregiver-Child Relationship Quality.” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 104, 4. • Wakefield, Sara, and Christopher Wildeman. 2011. Mass Imprisonment and Racial Disparities in Childhood Behavioral Problems. Criminology & Public Policy10:793-817. • Wakefield, Sara and Christopher Wildeman. 2013. Children of the Prison Boom: Mass Incarceration and the Future of American Inequality. New York: Oxford University Press. • Wakefield, Sara and Christopher Uggen. 2010. “Incarceration and Stratification.” Annual Review of Sociology 36: 387-406.

30. Isolating Incarceration Effects Future Disadvantage Prior Disadvantage Incarceration