Parental Incarceration and Intergenerational Social Exclusion

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Abstract: "Parental Incarceration and Intergenerational Social Exclusion" (Hagan & Foster)The Problem: What difference does it make to have a parent in prison? American incarceration is four times larger than in the 1970s, six to ten times greater than in European and Scandinavian countries, and the majority of Americans who are imprisoned are parents. The sample of young Americans in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health [Add Health] includes 2086 sons and daughters of fathers who have spent time in jail or prison during the peak growth years of incarceration in this country. This proposal involves collaboration in the collection of new data that will reveal the timing and frequency of the imprisonment of Add Health parents, so that we can trace the impact of this parental imprisonment on their sons and daughters from mid-adolescence to early adulthood. The risks of "social exclusion" these youth confront as a result of parental incarceration may take multiple forms: legal (criminal justice contacts); socio-economic (homelessness); political (electoral disenfranchisement); health (uninsuredness); cultural (electronic disconnection), social (isolation); and religious (spiritual removal). The challenge is to deepen and broaden our understanding of the cross generational consequences of incarcerating parents.Broader Impact: How expansive and far ranging are the exclusionary consequences of parental imprisonment for their children? Less educated, African- and Hispanic-American parents are more at risk of imprisonment than white American parents. The collection of data on the timing and frequency of parental imprisonment will create an unparalleled opportunity to examine the effects of parental imprisonment in a nationally representative sample during a unique period of elevated incarceration in the United States. The Add Health sample will allow analysis across racial/ethnic groups, including attention to Hispanic families who are seldom considered in crime research. The research will consider mothers and daughters as well as fathers and sons, and it will also include step-parents. The wide array of exclusionary outcomes included in the Add Health survey will allow a comprehensive assessment of the impact across generations of parental incarceration. It is noteworthy that each of the exclusionary domains measured involves some element of legal control or certification, indicating that findings from this research will have implications for legal regulation and reform. By adding parental incarceration histories to the nationally representative and historically unique Add Health data, this research will markedly expand opportunities to understand wide ranging risks of social exclusion currently associated with legal interventions across the life course transitions of two unique generations of American families. There is no other data set that can offer such robust measurement possibilities across generations, capturing at this crucial moment the unfolding life course consequences of a historically unique national experiment with mass incarceration.