Punishment Regimes and the Multi-Level Effects of Parental Imprisonment: Inter-Institutional, Inter-generational and Inter-sectional Models of Inequality and Exclusion

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How do effects of high levels of incarceration of parents on their children vary across the U.S.? Research has not systematically examined variation in these effects with a comprehensive and representative national sample that allows analysis of variation across U.S states. This research will be the first to examine variation in effects of maternal and paternal incarceration using a research design that can jointly examine state and school level policies on children. The research will be based on data gathered since 1995 on adolescents who are now adults in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health [Add Health]. The research will apply a life course theory to examine potentially modifiable pathways from childhood to adolescence and early to middle adulthood, focusing on such well measured developmental factors as high school grades, delinquency, justice system contacts, depressed feelings, and substance use. The overarching thesis is that variable effects of parental imprisonment are experienced by youth transitioning into and through adulthood in American society. The approach is intergenerational in linking imprisoned parents to children; inter-institutional in connecting state punishment policies with local schools; and intersectional in differentiating outcomes along racial/ethnic and gender lines of inequality. The research is concerned with explaining early adult outcomes of inequality, including earnings, employment, financial strain, and perceived relative socio-economic position. The sample is a historically unique cohort of parents and children born during the peak growth years (the 1980s) of mass incarceration and surveyed four times during the expansion of American imprisonment. The project includes the following objectives: (1) develop measures of state punishment to be appended to the Add Health data; (2) test state punishment effects; (3) test school punishment policies and related school effects; and (4) test parental imprisonment effects.