Health Consequences of Family Member Incarceration for Adults in the Household

Generalized and racialized consequences of the police response to intimate partner violence in the U.S.: A systematic scoping review

Intimate partner violence (IPV) impacts more than 40% of people in the U.S. Since the 1980s, the U.S. has maintained a police-centric response to IPV, which relies on arrest-via policies like mandatory arrest laws-as its primary intervention. There is mixed evidence on whether IPV policing decreases subsequent IPV at the individual level, but less is known about IPV policing's broader collateral consequences. This systematic scoping review is the first to synthesize existing evidence for the generalized consequences of IPV policing in the U.S. We searched Web of Science, ProQuest, and EBSCO Host, and identified 36 relevant articles. Survivor criminalization was the most studied generalized consequence of IPV policing and existing studies have documented positive associations between mandatory arrest laws and risk of survivor arrest. We also found numerous methodologically rigorous studies on the effects of mandatory arrest laws on population-level IPV victimization. The review also identifies gaps in the evidence base: there is a need for research on additional potential consequences of IPV policing such as police violence against survivors, involvement of child protective services, and psychosocial and physical health outcomes of survivors.

"Fear of the Unknown": Coparenting With an Incarcerated Individual

Over 2.2 million individuals are currently incarcerated in prisons and jails across the United States. Having a family member incarcerated impacts the entire family system. Recent research has shown the relational consequences of incarceration, such as adjusting to and negotiating new rules and roles within the coparenting relationship. The coparenting relationship is multifaceted and necessitates empirical evidence that significantly honors the voices that are at the center of experience but typically silenced by the stigma and prejudice nature of incarceration and its coinciding consequences. Coparenting partners of incarcerated individuals were interviewed to understand the lived experience of incarcerated coparenting using a phenomenological approach. Four themes (positive relationship, stigma, seeking and providing support, and impact of incarceration) emerged from eleven interviews. Implications are provided on how to best advocate for this population through research, clinical work, and policy.

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.

Trajectories of parents' gendered play attitudes during early childhood and implications for children's gender development

This study examined associations between parents' gendered attitudes about play and children's gender development. The sample was 501 families from a large US city followed annually for 4 years (501 mothers, 383 fathers; 69% White, 16% Latinx, 8% African American; children Mage  = 5.67 months, 53% boys). Latent trajectories examined change in parents' attitudes toward same- and other-gender play during first 4 years of the child's life. On a subsample (n = 252), trajectories were examined in relation to children's later gender-typed preferences and gender constancy. Parents grew more gender-flexible in their attitudes, particularly parents of boys. Trajectories reflecting more stereotypic attitudes showed some associations (small in magnitude) with children's gender-typed preferences and gender constancy by age 4.

The Mass Incarceration Trauma Framework: A Conceptual Model for Understanding Trauma among Individuals Who Experience Incarceration

The Mass Incarceration Trauma (MIT) framework is a conceptual model for understanding the role of trauma in the lives of individuals who experience incarceration in the United States. This population faces poverty, violence, and discrimination across the life span. The MIT framework is guided by an ecological systems perspective, a foundational theoretical approach in social work that recognizes that effective assessment and intervention require an understanding of the complex contexts in which individuals live. The MIT framework presents the cumulative trauma exposures commonly faced by this population before, during, and after incarceration at the individual, social, environmental, and historical levels. Because traumatic stress undermines health and daily functioning, it is essential that interventions for this population address both the ongoing risk for trauma exposure and the consequences of multiple, repeated past exposures across ecological systems. It is to be hoped that a new and fundamental focus on the poverty, contexts of violence, and lifetime disadvantages experienced by those who cycle through prisons in the United States might reframe the question of how our society should prevent and respond to crime as well as respond to those swept into the criminal justice system.

Sleep duration among adults exposed to family member incarceration during childhood

OBJECTIVES

The current study examines the association between family member incarceration during childhood and sleep duration among a national sample of adults (ages 18-80+).

METHODS

We employ data from the 2020 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (N = 116,631). We use stepwise, multinomial logistic regression to examine associations between exposure to family member incarceration during childhood and sleep duration during adulthood. We also utilize the Karlson-Holm-Breen method to investigate whether indicators of socioeconomic disadvantage, and poor mental and physical health attenuate this relationship. Finally, to examine the robustness of associations between family member incarceration and sleep duration, we used a strategic comparison approach in which participants experiencing family member incarceration were compared to participants experiencing alternative adverse childhood experiences in the absence of family member incarceration.

RESULTS

Findings demonstrate a significant association between family member incarceration and sleep duration, with particularly strong associations with short and long sleep durations (relative to optimum sleep duration). However, poor mental and physical health during adulthood and socioeconomic disadvantage significantly attenuated these associations. Strategic comparison models also revealed that the association between family member incarceration during childhood and sleep duration is robust to the accumulation of other childhood adversities.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings suggest that strategies are needed among public health practitioners, physicians, and sleep professionals to mitigate the potential adverse effects of family member incarceration during childhood on sleep duration among adults.

Jail Conditions And Mortality: Death Rates Associated With Turnover, Jail Size, And Population Characteristics

In 2019, there were approximately ten million admissions to more than 3,000 US jails-facilities that had become increasingly deadly in the prior decades. Between 2000 and 2019, jail mortality rose by approximately 11 percent. Although incarceration is widely viewed as a health hazard, relationships between jail conditions and jail deaths are understudied. Using data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and Reuters journalists, we assessed mortality rates and conditions in approximately 450 US jails in the period 2008-19. During those years, certain facility characteristics were related to mortality. For example, high turnover rates and high populations were associated with higher death rates. Greater proportions of non-Hispanic Black people in jail populations were associated with more deaths due to illness, and the presence of larger shares of non-US citizens was associated with lower overall mortality rates. Our findings suggest that heavy reliance on incarceration and the prevalence of broad health disparities escalate jail mortality.

"We (still) charge genocide": A systematic review and synthesis of the direct and indirect health consequences of police violence in the United States

Building on historical and contemporary efforts to eliminate police and other forms of state violence, and on the understanding that police violence is a social determinant of health, we conducted a systematic review in which we synthesize the existing literature around 1) racial disparities in police violence; 2) health impacts of direct exposure to police violence; and 3) health impacts of indirect exposure to police violence. We screened 336 studies and excluded 246, due to not meeting our inclusion criteria. Forty-eight additional studies were excluded during the full text review, resulting in a study sample size of 42 studies. Our review showed that Black people in the US are far more likely than white people to experience a range of forms of police violence: from fatal and nonfatal shootings, to assault and psychological violence. Exposure to police violence increases risk of multiple adverse health outcomes. Moreover, police violence may operate as a vicarious and ecological exposure, producing consequences beyond those directly assaulted. In order to successfully eliminate police violence, scholars must work in alignment with social justice movements.

When State Violence Comes Home: From Criminal Legal System Exposure to Intimate Partner Violence in a Time of Mass Incarceration

Exceptionally high rates of partner violence perpetration are evident among men returning from prison. Two bodies of scholarship, one on family stress and another on exposure to state violence, each suggest that criminal legal system exposure could promote partner violence perpetration via changes in men's behavioral health and interpersonal approach and in couples' conflict dynamics. Such relationships have not been tested in quantitative research. Structural equation models were fitted to longitudinal, couples-based survey data from the Multi-site Family Study on Incarceration, Parenting, and Partnering. Participants included men returning from a state prison term in five U.S. states (N = 1112) and their committed intimate or co-parenting partners (N = 1112). Models tested hypothesized pathways from three dimensions of criminal legal system exposure to later partner violence perpetration. In fitted models, men's childhood criminal legal system exposure predicts their post-prison partner violence perpetration via adult post-traumatic stress symptoms, reactivity, avoidance, and dysfunctional couple conflict dynamics. Men's cumulative criminal legal system exposure in adulthood predicts their post-prison partner violence perpetration via addiction and dysfunctional couple conflict. These initial results suggest that mass-scale incarceration could worsen partner violence via men's psychological and interpersonal adaptations to criminal legal system contact, particularly when such contact is sustained or occurs at a developmentally significant period in the life course.

Structural Racism, the Social Determination of Health, and Health Inequities: The Intersecting Impacts of Housing and Mass Incarceration

Public health researchers have directed increasing attention to structural racism and its implications for health equity. The conceptualization of racism as historically rooted in systems, structures, and institutions of US society has important implications for addressing social determinants of health (SDOH). It requires theorizing SDOH as embedded in and expressions of racially oppressive historical structures that are manifested in and maintained by policies, programs, and practices in multiple domains that dynamically intersect to reinforce and reproduce in new ways: race inequities in health. We develop this argument using housing, a SDOH recognized as reflecting longstanding racist practices and policies that, among other things, have restricted the affordable housing options of Black people to segregated neighborhoods with limited resources. We argue that understanding and addressing the health inequities resulting from structural racism associated with housing requires simultaneously understanding and addressing how housing intersects with mass incarceration, another SDOH and manifestation of structural racism. We suggest that unless these intersections are intentionally analyzed and confronted, efforts to address the impacts of housing on racial health disparities may produce new forms of health inequities. (Am J Public Health. 2023;113(S1):S58-S64. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2022.307116).

Multiple Disadvantage and Social Networks: Toward an Integrated Theory of Health Care Use During Reentry From Criminal Justice Settings

Research consistently finds the disproportionate negative health impact of the criminal justice system on racial and ethnic minorities. Yet less is known about the underlying mechanisms of health care utilization during community reintegration. We contribute to the literature theoretically by integrating two perspectives: network theory of social capital and multiple disadvantage hypothesis and providing a more nuanced explanation of health service use during reentry. We identify incarceration history as a unique disadvantaged status that precludes people from accessing social networks and social capital. We further elaborate on the phenomenon of racialized reentry and illustrate how multiple disadvantaged statuses are linked to social networks and health care.

Incarceration exposure and prescription opioid use during pregnancy

BACKGROUND

Prior research demonstrates a high prevalence of substance use, including opioid use, among those who have had personal or vicarious contact with the correctional system. Relatedly, alongside patterns of rising opioid use in general, opioid use during pregnancy is becoming a growing public health concern. Still, risk factors for prescription opioid use during pregnancy remain understudied. This study is the first to assess the connection between a women's personal or vicarious exposure to incarceration in the 12 months prior to birth and patterns of prenatal opioid use.

METHODS

Data are from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) in 2019 (N = 17,551 mothers). Logistic and multinomial logistic regression are used to assess the association between incarceration exposure and patterns of opioid use during pregnancy.

RESULTS

Incarceration-exposed women were more likely to use all eight types of prescription opioids assessed in this study (Hydrocodone, Codeine, Oxycodone, Tramadol, Hydromorphone/Meperidine, Oxymorphone, Morphine, and Fentanyl). After adjustment for control variables, incarceration-exposed women were significantly more likely to report any prescription opioid use during pregnancy (OR = 1.745, 95% CI = 1.194, 2.554). Furthermore, relative to no opioid use, incarceration exposure was also associated with illicit prescription opioid use (RRR = 2.979, 1.533, 5.791).

CONCLUSIONS

Incarceration exposure in the year prior to birth is associated with higher odds of prescription opioid use. These findings add to the burgeoning literature that details a women's exposure to incarceration is a risk marker for substance use and engagement in health risk behaviors that can jeopardize maternal and infant wellbeing.

Coparenting, Negative Educational Outcomes, and Familial Instability in Justice-involved Families

Incarceration of a parent is associated with negative consequences for children, such as behavioral problems, the development of antisocial personality traits, and decreased educational attainment. Data from the Multi-site Family Study on Incarceration, Parenting, and Partnering was used to analyze four measures of the coparenting relationship in families in which the father is incarcerated and the mother is not, to examine if a higher quality, more cohesive coparenting relationship is associated with fewer adverse childhood experiences for the parents' shared child. Findings suggest that children of parents who frequently argue about the child are more likely to have ever been suspended or expelled from school and are more likely to have ever had to live outside of the home with a relative, family friend, or foster parents. Clinical implications are discussed, and future directions call for research, practice, and training to improve outcomes for incarcerated coparents and their children.

Punitive Social Policy and Vital Inequality

Geographical inequalities in life and death are among the world's most pronounced in the United States. However, the driving forces behind this macroscopic variation in population health outcomes remain surprisingly understudied, both empirically and theoretically. The present article steps into this breach by assessing a number of theoretically informed hypotheses surrounding the underlying causes of such spatial heterogeneity. Above and beyond a range of usual suspects, such as poverty, unemployment, and ethno-racial disparities, we find that a hitherto neglected explanans is prison incarceration. In particular, through the use of previously unavailable county-level panel data and a compound instrumentation technique suited to isolating exogenous treatment variation, high imprisonment rates are shown to substantially increase the population-wide risk of premature death. Our findings contribute to the political economy of population health by relating the rise of the carceral state to the amplification of geographically anchored unequal life chances.

Black-White disparities in women's physical health: The role of socioeconomic status and racism-related stressors

Black women have elevated rates of multiple physical illnesses and conditions when compared to White women - disparities that are only partially explained by socioeconomic status (SES). Consequently, scholars have called for renewed attention to the significance of racism-related stress in explaining Black-White disparities in women's physical health. Drawing on the biopsychosocial model of racism as a stressor and the intersectionality perspective, this study examines the extent to which SES and racism-related stressors - i.e., discrimination, criminalization, and adverse neighborhood conditions - account for disparities in self-rated physical health and chronic health conditions between Black and White women. Results indicate that Black women have lower SES and report greater exposure to racism-related stressors across all domains. Moreover, I find that SES and racism-related stressors jointly account for more than 90% of the Black-White disparity in women's self-rated physical health and almost 50% of the Black-White disparity in chronic health conditions. Theoretical and policy implications of these findings are discussed.

Mothers' health following youth police stops

Research documents that criminal justice contact, such as incarceration, impairs health among family members of those experiencing the contact. Yet little is known about the health consequences of vicarious exposure to another common type of criminal justice contact, police stops. In the present study, we examined the association between youth police stops and mothers' health. We used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a cohort of urban children born around the turn of the 21st century and followed through adolescence (2014 to 2017), to estimate the association between youth police stops and mothers' health (measured by overall health and health limitations). We estimated these associations with propensity score matching, a counterfactual approach that accounts for observed selection into youth police stops. Analyses reveal that youth police stops had deleterious repercussions for mothers' health, net of their health prior to the stop. These health consequences emerged regardless of the frequency or intrusiveness of the stop. The negative association between youth police stops and overall health was larger among mothers of girls than among mothers of boys. Associations were similar across mothers' race/ethnicity and education. Taken together, results show that youth police stops exacerbate health problems among mothers. Given the concentration of police stops among youth of color, these findings highlight the consequences of the criminal justice system for population health inequalities.

Stress Among Older Adults With an Incarcerated Family Member: Testing the Buffering Model of Social Support

OBJECTIVES

This study investigates whether levels of social support moderate the association between age and stress among a sample of individuals who have a family member incarcerated.

METHODS

Survey responses from individuals who are members of a nonprofit organization for individuals with a family member incarcerated in Texas were used (n = 376). Ordinary least squares regression analysis was conducted to assess the interaction between age and levels of social support on stress.

RESULTS

Findings demonstrated a negative interaction between social support and age (b = -0.040, p = .027), indicating that higher levels of social support buffer against stress for older adults.

DISCUSSION

The theoretical mechanisms linking social support to reductions in stress among older individuals experiencing highly stressful life events (i.e., familial incarceration), as well as the policy and practical implications for enhancing social support among older individuals with a family member incarcerated, are discussed.

Women's Health in the Era of Mass Incarceration

Dramatic increases in criminal justice contact in the United States have rendered prison and jail incarceration common for US men and their loved ones, with possible implications for women's health. This review provides the most expansive critical discussion of research on family member incarceration and women's health in five stages. First, we provide new estimates showing how common family member incarceration is for US women by race/ethnicity and level of education. Second, we discuss the precursors to family member incarceration. Third, we discuss mechanisms through which family member incarceration may have no effect on women's health, a positive effect on women's health, and a negative effect on women's health. Fourth, we review existing research on how family member incarceration is associated with women's health. Fifth, we continue our discussion of the limitations of existing research and provide some recommendations for future research.

Family member incarceration and coping strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic

BACKGROUND

The disproportionately high rate of incarceration and COVID-19 cases during the summer of 2020 in the United States contributed to a set of circumstances that has produced considerable public health concerns as correctional facilities have emerged as significant COVID-19 hot spots. During the COVID-19 pandemic, having a family member incarcerated can be an especially stressful experience. This study assesses how concern about an incarcerated family member contracting COVID-19 impacts diverse coping strategies.

RESULTS

Data are from a survey of individuals who have a family member incarcerated in Texas (N = 365). Ordinary least squares regression is used to examine the association between concern about an incarcerated family member contracting COVID-19 and coping strategies. Findings demonstrate that higher levels of concern for an incarcerated person's wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic is associated with dysfunctional coping mechanisms, but not adaptive or functional coping strategies.

CONCLUSIONS

Results suggest appropriate systemic responses by correctional administrations and public health practices can help mitigate dysfunctional coping mechanisms by family members during infectious disease outbreaks in correctional facilities.

Age, period, and cohort effects on suicide death in the United States from 1999 to 2018: moderation by sex, race, and firearm involvement

The role of sex, race, and suicide method on recent increases in suicide mortality in the United States remains unclear. Estimating the age, period, and cohort effects underlying suicide mortality trends can provide important insights for the causal hypothesis generating process. We generated updated age-period-cohort effect estimates of recent suicide mortality rates in the US, examining the putative roles of sex, race, and method for suicide, using data from all death certificates in the US between 1999 and 2018. After designating deaths as attributable to suicide according to ICD-10 underlying cause of death codes X60-X84, Y87.0, and U03, we (i) used hexagonal grids to describe rates of suicide by age, period, and cohort visually and (ii) modeled sex-, race-, and suicide method-specific age, period, and cohort effects. We found that, while suicide mortality increased in the US between 1999 and 2018 across age, sex, race, and suicide method, there was substantial heterogeneity in age and cohort effects by method, sex, and race, with a first peak of suicide risk in youth, a second peak in older ages-specific to male firearm suicide, and increased rates among younger cohorts of non-White individuals. Our findings should prompt discussion regarding age-specific clinical firearm safety interventions, drivers of minoritized populations' adverse early-life experiences, and racial differences in access to and quality of mental healthcare.

Family member incarceration and physical health problems: A longitudinal study among Australian households

This study examines the relationship between poor physical health and exposure to family member incarceration. Longitudinal data (2001–2015) from an Australian nationally representative household-based panel study was used (177,312 observations within 26,572 respondents). Hybrid random-effects models showed a strong correlation between poor physical health and family member imprisonment. However, this strong association can be explained for a large part by differences between individuals, since the association of physical health with within-individual changes in family member imprisonment was considerably lower. Nevertheless, the within-individual analyses showed that male sample members were significantly more likely to experience physical health problems in years in which they experienced family member imprisonment, compared to years in which they did not. This association was not found among females. Moreover, no effect of parental imprisonment on the physical health of young sample members was found.

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Imprisonment of a family member is strongly related to poor physical health.

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This association can be explained for a large part by time-constant confounders.

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Males have poorer health in years in which family members are imprisoned.

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Females do not have poorer health in years in which family members are imprisoned.

Criminal punishment and violent injury in Minnesota

BACKGROUND

Violence is one of the leading causes of injury and death in the United States. One-way society attempts to eliminate violence is through criminal punishment. Yet, in many contexts, punishment fails to reduce violence and may cause other harms. Current research on violence often suffers from same-source bias which can produce spurious associations. This study assesses the associations of different forms of criminal punishment (monetary sanctions, incarceration, and probation) with violent injuries in two unique datasets.

METHODS

This study examines a unique combination of hospital discharge data and court administrative data, two Minnesota county-level data sources. First, we assess the spatial distribution of the three criminal punishment variables and two violent injury variables, violent injury overall and violent injury in children by county from 2010 to 2014, using Moran's I statistic and Local Indicators of Spatial Autocorrelation. Then we assess the association of criminal punishment on violent injury and child abuse injury using a two-way fixed effects panel models.

RESULTS

Child abuse injuries are relatively rare in our data but are significantly concentrated geographically, unlike violent injuries which are more dispersed throughout Minnesota. Incarceration and probation are significantly geographically concentrated in similar regions while monetary sanctions are not geographically concentrated. We find a link between probation loads and violent injury, specifically, with a 1 day increase in per capita probation supervision associated with a 0.044 increase in violent injury incidence per 1000 people. In contrast, monetary sanctions and incarceration loads have little association with either violent injury or child abuse injury incidence.

CONCLUSIONS

Criminal punishment is intended to reduce harm in society, but many argue that it may bring unintended consequences such as violence. This study finds that county-level probation has a modest positive association with county-level violent injury rates, but monetary sanctions and incarceration are less associated with violence injury rates. No measure of criminal punishment was associated with a reduction in violence. This study addresses a gap in previous literature by examining the association of punishment and violence in two unrelated datasets. High rates of criminal punishment and violent injury are both urgent public health emergencies. Further individual-level investigation is needed to assess potential links.

Incarceration exposure and electronic cigarette use during pregnancy: Findings from the pregnancy risk assessment monitoring system, 2016-2018

Smoking during pregnancy is a serious public health concern that poses risks for maternal and infant health. Considering the rise of electronic cigarette use in recent years, there is also growing concern about electronic cigarette use during pregnancy. Recent research has begun to explore correlates of electronic cigarette use among pregnant women. While research has revealed a strong connection between incarceration and smoking, scholars have yet to examine the connection between a woman's exposure to incarceration in the year prior to birth - either personally or vicariously through her husband or partner - and prenatal electronic cigarette use. The current study uses data from 74,554 recent mothers from the 2016-2018 Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System. Logistic regression and multinomial logistic regression models were used to assess the association between incarceration exposure and electronic cigarette use. The findings indicate a robust association between incarceration exposure and electronic cigarette use during pregnancy. Specifically, analyses demonstrate that incarceration-exposed women were approximately 2.7 times (AOR = 2.699, 95% CI = 1.939, 3.755) as likely to use electronic cigarettes after adjusting for a host of demographic, economic, health, and pregnancy related characteristics. Additional analyses reveal this association remains after accounting for conventional cigarette use during pregnancy. Considering the potential harmful health ramifications for electronic cigarette use during pregnancy, these findings suggest a need for interventions targeting electronic cigarette use among incarceration-exposed populations and point to electronic cigarette use among pregnant women in particular as an important area of focus for both criminal justice and public health practitioners.

Incarceration Exposure and Barriers to Prenatal Care in the United States: Findings from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System

Previous research demonstrates that exposure to incarceration during pregnancy - either personally or vicariously through a partner - worsens parental care. However, little is known about the specific barriers to parental care that are associated with incarceration exposure. Using data from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (years 2009-2016), the current study examines the relationship between exposure to incarceration during pregnancy and barriers to prenatal care in the United States. Negative binomial and logistic regression models were used to assess the association between the recent incarceration of a woman or her partner (i.e., incarceration that occurred in the 12 months prior to the focal birth) and several barriers to prenatal care. Findings indicate that exposure to incarceration, either personally or vicariously through a partner, increases the overall number of barriers to prenatal care and this association operates through several specific barriers including a lack of transportation to doctor's appointments, having difficulty finding someone to take care of her children, being too busy, keeping pregnancy a secret, and a woman not knowing she was pregnant. Policies designed to help incarceration exposed women overcome these barriers can potentially yield benefits for enhancing access to parental care.