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Title: Unintended Impacts of Sentencing on Family Structure
Resulting in 1 citation.
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Myers, Samuel L., Jr. |
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Unintended Impacts of Sentencing on Family Structure Presented: Washington, DC, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2000 Cohort(s): NLSY79 Publisher: American Sociological Association Keyword(s): Divorce; Drug Use; Family Characteristics; Family Environment; Family Structure; Household Composition; Incarceration/Jail; Marriage; Parents, Single; Racial Differences; Sex Ratios; Sociability/Socialization/Social Interaction; Underclass Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. This 24-month project was motivated by theoretical and empirical findings suggesting that sentencing reforms and punitive prison sanctions may have adverse impacts on families. The hypothesis that we tested using different data sets and different time periods and different measures of family structure was that imprisonment has had the unintended consequence of destabilizing families, particularly black families. To test the hypothesis, we designed three research modules that would each examine the relationship between family structure and incarceration, but using different measures and data sets. The first module merged the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth for 1965 and 1994 with the Urban Institute 1980 and 1990 Underclass Database and the 1984 and 1993 National Correctional Report Program data set for counties to measure the impact of inmate admissions and releases on female-headed families, female family headship and out-of-wedlock births. In the second module, we merged data from the Current Population Survey for 1985 and 1995 with state-level data to measure the Darity-Myers sex ratio and expected welfare income and their relationship to family structure, sentencing guidelines, and minimum sentences for drug-related crimes. Finally, Module C used data collected from inmates entering the Minnesota prison system in 1997 and 1998 and information from the Minnesota Crime Survey and the 1990 Census to assess any connections between incarceration and family structure. In summary, we found little support for the theoretically plausible hypothesis that there are strong unintended impacts of imprisonment policies on family structure. |
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Bibliography Citation
Myers, Samuel L., Jr. "Unintended Impacts of Sentencing on Family Structure." Presented: Washington, DC, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2000. |