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Incarceration in Fragile Families

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Title: Incarceration in Fragile Families
Language: English
Authors: Wildeman, Christopher, Western, Bruce
Source: Future of Children. Fall 2010 20(2):157-177.
Availability: Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and The Brookings Institution. 267 Wallace Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544. Tel: 609-258-6979; e-mail: FOC@princeton.edu; Web site: http://www.brookings.org/index/publications.htm
Peer Reviewed: Y
Physical Description: PDF
Page Count: 21
Publication Date: 2010
Document Type: Journal Articles
Opinion Papers
Descriptors: Crime, Safety, Correctional Institutions, Economically Disadvantaged, Minority Group Children, Institutionalized Persons, At Risk Persons, Criminals, Child Welfare, Social Problems, Social Change, Males, Educational Attainment, Racial Differences, Whites, Hispanic Americans, African Americans, Age Differences, Dropouts, Parent Child Relationship, Marital Status
ISSN: 1054-8289
Abstract: Since the mid-1970s the U.S. imprisonment rate has increased roughly fivefold. As Christopher Wildeman and Bruce Western explain, the effects of this sea change in the imprisonment rate--commonly called mass imprisonment or the prison boom--have been concentrated among those most likely to form fragile families: poor and minority men with little schooling. Imprisonment diminishes the earnings of adult men, compromises their health, reduces familial resources, and contributes to family breakup. It also adds to the deficits of poor children, thus ensuring that the effects of imprisonment on inequality are transferred intergenerationally. Perversely, incarceration has its most corrosive effects on families whose fathers were involved in neither domestic violence nor violent crime before being imprisoned. Because having a parent go to prison is now so common for poor, minority children and so negatively affects them, the authors argue that mass imprisonment may increase future racial and class inequality--and may even lead to more crime in the long term, thereby undoing any benefits of the prison boom. U.S. crime policy has thus, in the name of public safety, produced more vulnerable families and reduced the life chances of their children. Wildeman and Western advocate several policy reforms, such as limiting prison time for drug offenders and for parolees who violate the technical conditions of their parole, reconsidering sentence enhancements for repeat offenders, and expanding supports for prisoners and ex-prisoners. But Wildeman and Western argue that criminal justice reform alone will not solve the problems of school failure, joblessness, untreated addiction, and mental illness that pave the way to prison. In fact, focusing solely on criminal justice reforms would repeat the mistakes the nation made during the prison boom: trying to solve deep social problems with criminal justice policies. Addressing those broad problems, they say, requires a greater social commitment to education, public health, and the employment opportunities of low-skilled men and women. The primary sources of order and stability--public safety in its wide sense--are the informal social controls of family and work. Thus, broad social policies hold the promise not only of improving the well-being of fragile families, but also, by strengthening families and providing jobs, of contributing to public safety. (Contains 1 figure, 3 tables and 65 endnotes.)
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2010
Accession Number: EJ901827
Database: ERIC
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Future+of+Children%22"><i>Future of Children</i></searchLink>. Fall 2010 20(2):157-177.
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  Data: Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and The Brookings Institution. 267 Wallace Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544. Tel: 609-258-6979; e-mail: FOC@princeton.edu; Web site: http://www.brookings.org/index/publications.htm
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  Data: Since the mid-1970s the U.S. imprisonment rate has increased roughly fivefold. As Christopher Wildeman and Bruce Western explain, the effects of this sea change in the imprisonment rate--commonly called mass imprisonment or the prison boom--have been concentrated among those most likely to form fragile families: poor and minority men with little schooling. Imprisonment diminishes the earnings of adult men, compromises their health, reduces familial resources, and contributes to family breakup. It also adds to the deficits of poor children, thus ensuring that the effects of imprisonment on inequality are transferred intergenerationally. Perversely, incarceration has its most corrosive effects on families whose fathers were involved in neither domestic violence nor violent crime before being imprisoned. Because having a parent go to prison is now so common for poor, minority children and so negatively affects them, the authors argue that mass imprisonment may increase future racial and class inequality--and may even lead to more crime in the long term, thereby undoing any benefits of the prison boom. U.S. crime policy has thus, in the name of public safety, produced more vulnerable families and reduced the life chances of their children. Wildeman and Western advocate several policy reforms, such as limiting prison time for drug offenders and for parolees who violate the technical conditions of their parole, reconsidering sentence enhancements for repeat offenders, and expanding supports for prisoners and ex-prisoners. But Wildeman and Western argue that criminal justice reform alone will not solve the problems of school failure, joblessness, untreated addiction, and mental illness that pave the way to prison. In fact, focusing solely on criminal justice reforms would repeat the mistakes the nation made during the prison boom: trying to solve deep social problems with criminal justice policies. Addressing those broad problems, they say, requires a greater social commitment to education, public health, and the employment opportunities of low-skilled men and women. The primary sources of order and stability--public safety in its wide sense--are the informal social controls of family and work. Thus, broad social policies hold the promise not only of improving the well-being of fragile families, but also, by strengthening families and providing jobs, of contributing to public safety. (Contains 1 figure, 3 tables and 65 endnotes.)
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      – Text: English
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      – SubjectFull: Crime
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Safety
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Correctional Institutions
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Economically Disadvantaged
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Minority Group Children
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      – SubjectFull: Institutionalized Persons
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      – SubjectFull: At Risk Persons
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      – SubjectFull: Child Welfare
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      – SubjectFull: Racial Differences
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      – SubjectFull: Hispanic Americans
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      – SubjectFull: African Americans
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      – SubjectFull: Age Differences
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      – SubjectFull: Dropouts
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      – SubjectFull: Parent Child Relationship
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