Children of the Prison Boom: Mass Incarceration and the Future of American Inequality

249 Pages·2014·3.44 MB·English

by  Sara Wakefield & Christopher Wildeman & Christopher James Wildeman

CHILDREN OF THE PRISON BOOM
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CHILDREN OF THE
PRISON BOOM
Mass Incarceration and the Future of
American Inequality
SARA WAKEFIELD
CHRISTOPHER WILDEMAN
1
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1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wakefi eld, Sara.
Children of the prison boom : mass incarceration and the future of American
inequality / Sara Wakefi eld, Christopher Wildeman.
pages cm. —(Studies in crime and public policy)
ISBN 978–0–19–998922–5 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Children of prisoners–
United States–Social conditions. 2. Corrections–Social aspects–United States.
3. Imprisonment–United States. 4. Equality–United States. I. Wildeman,
Christopher James, 1979-II. Title.
HV8886.U5W35 2013
362.82’950973–dc23
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
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For Riley
For Carol, Cilla,
Greta, Jim and Silas
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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments ix
1. Introduction 1
2. Th e Social Patterning of Parental Imprisonment 27
3. Before and Aft er Imprisonment 43
4. P aternal Incarceration and Mental Health and
Behavioral Problems 71
5. Paternal Incarceration and Infant Mortality 97
6. Parental Incarceration and Child Homelessness 113
7. Mass Imprisonment and Childhood Inequality 131
8. Conclusion 149
Methodological Appendix 167
Notes 195
References 201
Index 2 23
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Th is book could not have been accomplished without the gener-
ous support of many, many people. We would like to acknowledge
some of them here—though our gratitude extends further—and
hope that the reader holds us (rather than those who us gave
fi nancial, intellectual, or emotional support) responsible for
shortcomings in our work. Th is is our fi rst book so we reserve
the right to gush and have made no attempt to be succinct—but
we promise to return to the expected pithy academic prose in
the pages to follow these acknowledgments. We also hope that
we can make it up to anyone we foolishly omitted. As we write,
our editor likely grows impatient, so we surely will forget some
people who are incredibly important to us intellectually, person-
ally, or both. We will buy you a beer the next time we see you to
make it up to you.
We fi rst would like to direct the reader to several related
publications that are foundational to the book. Although much
of the analysis in this book is new, many of the earlier analyses
on which it is based have appeared in other outlets (Wakefi eld
2007; Wakefi eld and Uggen 2010; Wakefi eld and Wildeman 2011;
Wildeman 2009, 2010, 2012, Forthcoming, and Wildeman and
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