Household Incarceration in Early Adolescence and Risk of Premarital First Birth

Does the State Impact Hope? The Impact of Direct and Vicarious Police Contact on the Optimism of Youth in Large Cities

A growing body of research has begun to examine the implications of police contact for youth. Largely emphasizing serious police contact (arrest, court involvement, and incarceration), this scholarship has generally found that police contact is associated with negative health and educational outcomes. In this study, we build on this work by examining the implications of direct and vicarious police contact for youth attitudes towards the future, both generally and with respect to graduating college. Using multivariate regression models that incorporated a wide range of control variables and data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, we found that youth who experienced police stops without an arrest were less optimistic in general and with respect to college graduation. We found the same for youth who experienced vicarious police contact, but for youth who experienced arrest we only found a significant reduction in optimism with respect to college graduation. Therefore, based on our findings and prior scholarship, we argue that social workers should push policymakers to move beyond the status quo and to make significant changes to how they go about promoting public safety.

The Relationship Between Family Member Incarceration, Criminal Offending, and Victimization

Mass incarceration has significantly impacted families nationwide. Recent evidence suggests that at least 45% of Americans have experienced the incarceration of an immediate family member (Enns et al., 2019). Prior evidence has demonstrated that adolescents and young adults who experience family member incarceration experience increases in criminogenic outcomes. However, less is known about whether family member incarceration contributes to increases in victimization and if it occurs indirectly through increases in offending. To address this question, the current study uses 10 waves of the Pathways to Desistance Study, which is a longitudinal study that followed justice-involved youth over 7 years (N = 8,346 person waves). Using fixed-effects negative binomial regression, findings demonstrate that experiencing familial incarceration is associated with increases in victimization and that criminal offending may be one mechanism that indirectly explains this relationship. Policy and programming implications are further discussed.

Incarceration and adversity histories: Modeling life course pathways affecting behavioral health

A consequence of a growing incarceration rate is that an increasing number of children face having an incarcerated household member, a known contributor to diverse lifelong behavioral health risks such as substance use and mental health impairment. Few studies have explored how household incarceration uniquely contributes to these subsequent behavioral health concerns, nor mediational contributors to these associations, within a theoretical framework. Using state Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey data (n = 14,001), this study tests pathways of household incarceration and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) to mental health impairment and substance use in adulthood. Within a life course stress process perspective, this study uses structural equation modeling to examine mediational pathways through adulthood incarceration and indicators of adulthood adversity, low income, and supportive resources. In line with stress process theorizing, results indicate significant direct and indirect paths of ACEs through nearly all theorized mediators, and indirect pathways of household incarceration, through incarceration and low income, to adulthood mental health impairment and substance use. Implications of these findings address preventive and interventive leverage points to mitigate long-term consequences of household incarceration and other childhood adversities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Substance Use Outcomes for Hispanic Emerging Adults Exposed to Incarceration of a Household Member during Childhood

This study investigates whether Hispanic emerging adults exposed to household incarceration before age 18 report higher rates of past 30-day cigarette, alcohol, binge drinking, marijuana use, and negative substance use consequences, relative to participants not exposed to incarceration of a household member. Respondents were matched on key characteristics to create balanced groups of exposed and nonexposed respondents. Negative binomial regression models assessed primary research questions. There were significant long-term associations between household incarceration and the frequency of past 30-day binge drinking, marijuana use, and number of negative substance use consequences. Policies and health programs addressing household incarceration may be a promising prevention approach to reduce negative substance use outcomes among Hispanic emerging adults.

Incarceration and Relative Poverty in Cross-National Perspective: The Moderating Roles of Female Employment and the Welfare State

A growing body of scholarship explores how incarceration contributes to inequality. The majority of this scholarship focuses on individual-level outcomes or aggregate outcomes within the United States. Despite substantial cross-national variation in incarceration rates, we know little about whether these differences contribute to cross-national variation in inequality outcomes. Using data from the period 1971-2010 from 15 advanced democracies, this study begins to fill this gap by exploring whether cross-national differences in incarceration rates help to explain cross-national differences in relative poverty rates. Although this research finds no average association, this null association obscures the important moderating role of country context. The association between incarceration and relative poverty is contingent upon a country's female employment rate and welfare state generosity.

The Effect of Message Frames on Public Attitudes Toward Criminal Justice Reform for Nonviolent Offenses

In recent years, the rhetoric surrounding criminal justice policy has increasingly emphasized reform, rather than being "tough on crime." Although this change in rhetoric is aimed at building public support for reform, little is known about its efficacy. To test the efficacy of reform rhetoric, I conducted an Internet experiment using Amazon Mechanical Turk. Respondents were randomly assigned to one of six message conditions or to a control condition (no message) and then asked their views about eliminating the use of incarceration for select nonviolent offenses. Results from ordinal logistic regression models suggest that message frames that appeal to a respondent's self-interest or emphasize the unfairness of the punishment (not who is punished) tend to be most effective.