Disentangling the Relationship Between Social Ties, Prison Visitation, and Recidivism

Abstract

Studies find inmates who receive visits while incarcerated are less likely to recidivate upon release, especially when visits are from spouses and occur frequently throughout incarceration. Absent from these studies is measurement of the quality of an inmate’s relationships prior to incarceration, which may play a more significant role in criminal desistance than visitation itself. Longitudinal data from 205 incarcerated male and female adult offenders were used to test the mediating effects of visitation for offenders with varying levels of preincarceration relationships on recidivism. Findings indicate that quality of an inmate’s preincarceration relationships is more important in reducing the odds of recidivism than visitation. When quality of relationships was taken into account, visitation became nonsignificant in predicting the odds of recidivism. Most critical, a strong maternal relationship prior to incarceration was associated with a reduction in recidivism subsequent to a period of incarceration.

Receiving Social Support after Short-term Confinement: How Support Pre- and During-confinement Contribute

“…Unsurprisingly, preconfinement support is also correlated with during-confinement support: Those who had support from each party preconfinement were more likely to receive visits from them. This is similar to recent work linking preconfinement relationship quality to receiving visits (Atkin-Plunk and Armstrong 2018).…”

“…Studies have aimed to address this potential selection bias with advanced techniques (e.g., propensity score matching; Mears et al 2012); however, these methods only control for bias on observables. Preconfinement support is rarely measured, yet is likely a key contributor to who is visited (e.g., Atkin-Plunk and Armstrong 2018). Additionally, our study contributes to the limited literature on the role of relationships and how support after confinement is interrelated across providers by examining whether it operates in tandem or fluctuates independently (see Pettus-Davis et al 2017).…”

All in the Family: An Examination of the Predictors of Visitation Among Committed Juvenile Offenders

“…Not all studies, however, find beneficial effects of visits. Indeed, sometimes visitation has null effects on misconduct (Clark, 2001; Hensley, Koscheski, & Tewksbury, 2002; Jiang & Winfree, 2006; Lahm, 2008, 2009) and recidivism (Adams & Fischer, 1976; Atkin-Plunk & Armstrong, 2018). This diversity of results may follow, in part, from differences across studies in accounting for spuriousness.…”

“…This diversity of results may follow, in part, from differences across studies in accounting for spuriousness. For example, Atkin-Plunk and Armstrong (2018) found that controlling for the quality of pre-incarceration relationships reduced the effects of visitation to nonsignificance. Similarly, Cochran, Barnes, Mears, and Bales (2018) found that an instrumental variable approach to controlling for spuriousness eliminated the visitation effects evident in regression models that included relevant controls.…”

“…This is particularly true for juvenile offenders for whom many states, including Florida, limit visits primarily to family members (Florida Department of Juvenile Justice [FDJJ], 2012a). Thus, strong relationships between an offender and family members should encourage visits because family members should want to sustain emotional connections and ensure that the confined family member feels supported and is faring as well as possible (Atkin-Plunk & Armstrong, 2018; Casey-Acevedo & Bakken, 2002; Christian, 2005). Conversely, adversarial and combative family relationships should discourage visits perhaps because families wish to avoid the stressful interactions and arguments that could emerge during visits (Christian, 2005; Pleggenkuhle et al, 2017; Tasca et al, 2016; Turanovic & Tasca, 2017).…”