Abstract:

While much research focuses on how imprisonment transforms the life-course of black men, researchers have paid little attention to how parental imprisonment alters childhood. This dissertation considers the effects of mass incarceration on children. The first empirical chapter estimates the risk of parental imprisonment for black and white children born 1978 and 1990. It also estimates the risk of parental imprisonment for black and white children by parental education. Results indicate that parental imprisonment has emerged as a novel childhood risk in recent years. They also show that parental imprisonment is modal for black children whose parents did not finish high school.

Just because parental imprisonment is common does not mean it will increase inequality among children. For that to be the case, parental imprisonment must also disadvantage children. The final two empirical chapters test for causal relationships between parental incarceration and childhood disadvantage. The first of these chapters uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to consider effects of paternal incarceration on children's aggressive behaviors. Results show effects of paternal incarceration on aggressive behaviors for boys but not girls. Results also show that effects are concentrated among boys living with their fathers shortly before incarceration. The use of various modeling strategies and alternate dependent and independent variables demonstrates the robustness of the finding.

The final chapter examines the relationship between imprisonment rates and infant mortality rates for all 50 states and the District of Columbia from 1990 to 2004. Results suggest that female and male imprisonment rates are both associated with increased infant mortality rates in OLS regression models and fixed effects models. Since female and male imprisonment rates are highly correlated, I also show that it appears these increases are driven by the female imprisonment rate, although the evidence is not overwhelming. Robustness checks continue to demonstrate the influence of imprisonment rates on infant mortality rates. Although additional analyses will need to be conducted to demonstrate whether this finding holds, this chapter provides a worthwhile first step toward considering the relationship between imprisonment and infant mortality.