HOME AGAIN, HOME AGAIN: INCARCERATION, RESIDENTIAL MOBILITY, AND ...

127 Pages·2013·1 MB·English

by  Cody Warner

The Pennsylvania State University
The Graduate School
College of the Liberal Arts

HOME AGAIN, HOME AGAIN:
INCARCERATION, RESIDENTIAL MOBILITY, AND NEIGHBORHOOD DESTINATIONS

A Dissertation in
Sociology
by
Cody Warner

© 2013 Cody Warner

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements
for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

August 2013
The dissertation of Cody Warner was reviewed and approved* by the following:

Glenn Firebaugh
Roy C. Buck Professor of American Institutions and Professor of Sociology and Demography
Dissertation Co-Advisor
Co-Chair of Committee

Derek Kreager
Associate Professor of Sociology and Crime, Law, and Justice
Dissertation Co-Advisor
Co-Chair of Committee

Barrett A. Lee
Professor of Sociology and Demography

Jeremy Staff
Associate Professor of Crime, Law, and Justice and Sociology

Kai Schafft
Associate Professor of Education

John Iceland
Professor of Sociology and Demography
Head of the Department of Sociology

*Signatures on file in the Graduate School
ABSTRACT

Presently, 1 of every 200 American adults is confined in a state or federal prison. The vast majority of
these prisoners are eventually released, and each year approximately 700,000 convicted offenders leave
prisons and return to communities across the country. Where they go after prison is an important part of
the community reentry and reintegration process. Ex-inmates who move frequently after prison or who
live in poor and disadvantaged neighborhoods are more likely to recidivate and return to prison. While it
is generally recognized that housing and residential characteristics are important during reentry, little is
known about the actual residential mobility patterns of individuals with a history of incarceration. The
current study uses nationally representative longitudinal data to examine how incarceration (and
especially life after release) impacts individual residential mobility behavior. I draw on core perspectives
of stratification and attainment to place incarceration alongside other life events known to be correlated
with residential mobility. I find that, like many life events, incarceration creates short-term residential
mobility. However, in contrast to events like marriage and homeownership, which foster residential
stability, incarceration contributes to long-term patterns of residential instability. The difference in
observed mobility between survey respondents with and without a history of incarceration becomes larger
across time. With this information in mind, I then examine if ex-inmate mobility patterns are associated
with upward or downward social mobility (or locational attainment). Housing careers of non-inmates
generally move in an upward direction, as individuals and households use residential mobility to match
their residences to evolving housing needs. I argue that incarceration might block or even reverse this
process, ultimately trapping ex-inmates in poor and disadvantaged neighborhoods. I find that
incarceration is associated with downward mobility into poor neighborhoods, but is unrelated to upward
mobility out of them. I close by noting the implications and contributions of my findings, some important
study limitations, and highlighting areas for future research.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES………………………………………………………………………………………..vi

LIST OF TABLES…………………………………………………………………………….…………..vii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………………………………...….viii

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………………..1

The Era of Mass Incarceration……………………………………………………………………..3
Prisons and Inequality……………………………………………………………………………...5
The Housing and Residential Contexts of Incarceration………………………………….8
Dissertation Overview……………………………………………………………………………10

CHAPTER 2. DATA SOURCES…………………………………………………………………………13

CHAPTER 3. INCARCERATION, LIFE EVENTS, AND RESIDENTIAL MOBILITY……………….19

Prisoner Reentry and the Collateral Consequences of Incarceration……………………………..20
Life Events and Residential Mobility…………………………………………………………….22
Incarceration and Residential Mobility…………………………………………………..25
Data and Methods………………………………………………………………………………...30
Logic of Analysis and Analytic Strategy………………………………………………...34
Results Part 1. The decision to stay or move……………………………………………………..37
Supplementary Analyses…………………………………………………………………43
Results Part 2. Trajectories of Mobility…………………………………………………………..44
Other Life Events and Trajectories of Mobility………………………………………….48
Discussion………………………………………………………………………………………...50
Chapter 3 Tables………………………………………………………………………………….54
Chapter 3 Figures...……………………………………………………………………………….59

CHAPTER 4. INCARCERATION AND RESIDENTIAL MOBILITY BETWEEN POOR AND NON-
POOR NEIGHBORHOODS………………………………………………………………………………66

The Growth of Poor Neighborhoods……………………………………………………………...67
Mobility Between Poor and Non-Poor Neighborhoods………………………………….69
Incarceration and Locational Attainment………………………………………………...71
Hypotheses………………………………………………………………………………………..76
Data and Methods………………………………………………………………………………...78
Analytic Strategy………………………………………………………………………...80
Results…………………………………………………………………………………………….82
Supplementary Analyses…………………………………………………………………87
Discussion………………………………………………………………………………………...88
Chapter 4 Tables………………………………………………………………………………….93
Chapter 4 Figure.…………………………………………………………………………………98

CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………………….99

Limitations………………………………………………………………………………………100
Study Contributions……………………………………………………………………………..103
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Future Research…………………………………………………………………………………106

References………………………………………………………………………………………………..109

Appendix A: Incarceration and Residential Mobility: Alternative Model Specifications…………….…116
Appendix B: Random and Fixed Effects Poisson Regression Models Predicting Total Mobility………117
Appendix C: Predicting Downward Mobility with Alternative Poverty Definitions……………………118
Appendix D: Predicting Upward and Downward Mobility among Respondents with History of
Incarceration…………………………………………………………………………………….119

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 3.1. Frequency of Life Events in the NLSY79

Figure 3.2. Frequency of Mobility by History of Incarceration

Figure 3.3. Predicted Probability of Mobility Based on Life Events (Short- and Long-Term Effects)

Figure 3.4. Distribution of Total Observed Mobility in the NLSY79

Figure 3.5. Incarceration and Trajectories of Mobility

Figure 3.6. Marriage and Trajectories of Mobility

Figure 3.7. Divorce and Trajectories of Mobility

Figure 4.1. Predicted Probability of Mobility From a Non-Poor to a Poor Tract by Race and Incarceration
Status

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1. Descriptive Statistics for Never- and Ever-Incarcerated Respondents (Person-Observations)

Table 3.2. Residential Mobility Regressed on Short- and Long-Term Life Events (Logistic Regression
Models)

Table 3.3. Random and Fixed Effects Regression Models Predicting Number of Moves

Table 3.4. Marriage, Divorce, and Total Number of Moves

Table 4.1. Upward and Downward Residential Mobility Distributions by Incarceration Status

Table 4.2. Descriptive Statistics for Independent Variables Predicting Upward and Downward Mobility;
By Incarceration Status

Table 4.3. Downward Mobility: Logistic Regression Predicting Residential Mobility From a Non-Poor to
a Poor Census Tract; 1979-2008

Table 4.4. Upward Mobility: Logistic Regression Predicting Residential Mobility from a Poor to a Non-
Poor Census Tract; 1979-2008

vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This dissertation, and more generally my successful completion of graduate school, is not
possible without the various and generous types of support I have received from family, friends, and
colleagues over the years. I would especially like to thank the co-advisors of this dissertation, Glenn
Firebaugh and Derek Kreager. Not only do I owe you both a great deal of thanks for the assistance on this
project, but you have both pushed me in various ways to become a better researcher and scholar. I would
also like to thank the other members of my dissertation committee: Barrett Lee, Jeremy Staff, and Kai
Schafft. I could not be happier with the group of scholars I assembled to oversee this project.
I would remiss not to acknowledge the Pennsylvania State University, and especially the
Department of Sociology and Crime, Law and Justice. I have been incredibly spoiled during my graduate
career with an abundance of opportunities and institutional resources. I am so grateful for the wonderful
training that I have received at Penn State. But this graduate training would not have been possible
without the initial opportunities provided me by the University of Wyoming. The classes I took in the
Sociology and Psychology departments at UW sparked my initial interests in research and scholarship. I
may be trained as a Nittany Lion, but I will forever be a Wyoming Cowboy.
I have an incredible family (immediate and extended), and they have provided invaluable forms
of support and guidance during my graduate career. I could never thank my parents, Gary and Karen
Warner, enough for their support and encouragement not just in graduate school, but in everything that I
do. I was also lucky to be raised with spectacular siblings, and would like to thank Zachary and Maggie
Warner for teaching me most of the important lessons that I have learned in life. When you grow up on a
ranch your best friends and playmates are your siblings, and I could not have asked for a better pair. I
would also like to say thank you to so many friends and informal advisors who have put up with, pushed,
and encouraged me throughout the years. There are far too many of you to list here, and I hope that I have
expressed proper gratitude in other ways. I would like to single out John McCarthy, who saw promise in
me long before anyone else (myself included) thought I could succeed in academia.
Finally, none of this is possible without Kaylin Greene, who is not only my partner, but also my
best friend and driving force behind most of my ambitions and successes.

viii
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

At yearend 2011, there were nearly 7 million offenders under the supervision of the adult
correctional system (those individuals in prison or jail, or on probation or parole) (Glaze and Parks 2012).
Of this group, over 1.5 million were serving a sentence of more than one year in a state or federal prison
(Carson and Sabol 2012). The current correctional population reflects four decades of the incredible
growth and proliferation of incarceration as a form of punishment. Between 1972 and 1998, for instance,
the prison population rose nearly 500 percent, while the national population grew by only 28 percent
(Mauer 2006:1). As a result, for the last decade the U.S. has had the highest incarceration rate in the
world (number of adults incarcerated per 100,000 of the adult population). In 2011, 1 of every 34 adults
was under some form of correctional supervision, and about 1 of every 200 adults was confined in a state
or federal prison (Carson and Sabol 2012; Glaze and Parks 2012).
Rather than a direct response to rising crime rates, the incredible growth of the U.S. correctional
population was primarily the result of a series of policy changes that made incarceration a more certain
and severe response to crime. The lifetime risk of incarceration doubled during the height of the prison
boom, and this was accompanied by increased sentence lengths and a growing reliance on mandatory
sentences (Garland 2001; Pettit and Western 2004). Following closely on the heels of the prison boom
was the incredible growth of ex-inmate community reentry and reintegration (Travis 2005). Over 95
percent of all prison inmates are eventually released back into the community, and each year
approximately 700,000 convicted offenders are released from state and federal prisons. Indeed, in recent
years, the number of individuals released from prisons has surpassed the number of individuals admitted
to prisons (Carson and Sabol 2012). Their prospects of staying out of prison in the future are not
especially great (Langan and Levin 2002), and emerging research suggests that correctional contact has a
number of unanticipated and unintended consequences for offenders, their families, and their
communities. This research, described below, is united by the general observation that incarceration both
reflects and creates widespread social inequalities.
A growing portion of this literature has focused on the relationship between incarceration and
residential outcomes (Hipp, Turner, and Jannetta 2010; La Vigne and Kachnowski 2003; Massoglia,
Firebaugh, and Warner 2013; Visher and Farrell 2005; Watson et al. 2004). These studies generally
conclude that prisoners tend to be drawn from – and then subsequently return to – some of the most
disadvantaged urban neighborhood environments in the country. Parole agencies consider stable housing
to be one of the most important parts of the reentry process (Bradley et al. 2001; La Vigne, Brooks, and
Shollenberger 2007; Petersilia 2003), and housing and neighborhood characteristics play a strong role in
the reentry and reintegration process. Ex-inmates who reside in disadvantaged neighborhoods or who
move around a lot following prison are more likely to return to prison through recidivism (Hipp,
Petersilia, and Turner 2010; Kubrin and Stewart 2006; Steiner, Makarios, and Travis 2011).
What remains unclear, however, is how the imprisonment experience impacts both the decision to
move from or stay in a residence, or the types of neighborhoods that ex-inmates come to reside. This
dissertation begins to fill this gap by studying the relationship between incarceration, residential mobility,
and neighborhood destinations. In doing so, I draw on core perspectives in the life course (especially the
emphasis on transitions and trajectories), stratification, and mobility. Residential mobility has long been
viewed as a key component of social mobility. Individuals and families that want to improve their
neighborhood environments typically do so through the mobility process (Rossi 1980; Speare, Goldstein,
and Frey 1975). Furthermore, even though some mobility after prison might buffer against recidivism
(Kirk 2009, 2012), existing research has largely overlooked the role of incarceration in either fostering or
prohibiting mobility between neighborhoods of varying quality (but see Hipp et al. 2010).
The present chapter proceeds as follows. I start with an overview of what has commonly been
called the “era of mass incarceration.” Here I provide some specifics on the incredible growth of the U.S.
criminal justice system, highlighting especially those policy decisions that helped fueled this expansion. I
then discuss the rapidly accumulating evidence on the role of incarceration as a source of social
inequality. This is a large and diverse body of research, and I provide an overview of the effect of
incarceration on individual, family, community and aggregate outcomes. I use this evidence as a
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