Instability, informal control, and criminogenic situations: community effects of returning prisoners

Abstract

Incarceration, whose putative goal is the reduction of crime, may at higher concentrations actually increase crime by overwhelming neighborhoods with limited resources. The present research poses and provides initial support for an explanation of this paradoxical consequence of a crime control strategy. Specifically, we draw on two different lines of theoretical work to suggest that large numbers of returning prisoners may negatively impact a community's economic and residential stability, limiting a community's capacity for informal social control and resulting in labor market conditions conducive to criminal behavior. This study combines data on local social organization processes from a large survey of Seattle residents with contextual, crime, and incarceration data from the US Census, Seattle Police Department, and Washington State Department of Corrections. The results suggest that high concentrations of returning prisoners are associated with a reduced capacity for collective efficacy; the fostering of social situations conducive to criminal behavior; and higher levels of violent crime. The impact of incarceration on these neighborhood processes, however, appears to be largely indirect through the turmoil that concentrations of incarceration create in a neighborhood's labor and housing markets. We conclude with a call for greater scrutiny of the goals and actual outcomes of incarceration policy.

Long‐term consequences of membership in trajectory groups of delinquent behavior in an urban sample: Violence, drug use, interpersonal, and neighborhood attributes

“…This parallels the finding of Drakulich et al (2012) that a high concentration of returning prisoners was associated with low collective efficacy and high levels of violent crime in the surrounding neighborhood. The current finding demonstrates that the link between persistent delinquent behavior and residence in a high-crime neighborhood extends to non-institutionalized samples as well.…”

Relationship Between Prison Length of Stay and Recidivism: A Study Using Regression Discontinuity and Instrumental Variables With Multiple Break Points

“…Community effects of incarceration are less certain. Although there are spatial concentrations of crime and incarceration in communities (see, e.g., Drakulich, Crutchfield, Matsueda, and Rose, 2012;Sampson and Loeffler, 2010), these occur in mostly disadvantaged communities. Clear (2007) and Rose and Clear (1998) made the argument that concentrated incarceration destabilizes neighborhoods eroding informal social control and promoting further economic disadvantage.…”

Incarceration, Prisoner Reentry, and Communities

“…Higher rates of prison release were associated with higher levels of crime in a study of Sacramento neighborhoods (Hipp & Yates 2009) and lower levels of social organization in studies of Sacramento (Hipp & Yates 2009)and Seattle neighborhoods (Drakulich et al 2012). Rates of prison admission were positively associated with crime in a study of Portland neighborhoods (Renauer & Cunningham 2006), but this finding was only partially replicated in a study New York City neighborhoods (Fagan et al 2003), 12 while a study of Baltimore neighborhoods (Lynch & Sabol 2004b) found that admission rates were not associated with crime or most indicators of neighborhood social disorganization.…”

“…Returning prisoners may be especially vulnerable to the effects of neighborhood social isolation because they already face considerable labor market barriers, including lack of human capital, stigma from employers, and legal exclusion from some occupations and public benefits (Brucker 2006, Bushway et al 2007, Harding et al Forthcoming, Travis 2005). In a related theory on disadvantaged neighborhoods, Crutchfield and colleagues (Crutchfield et al 2006, Drakulich et al 2012) argue that neighborhoods where many residents have weak attachment and commitment to conventional jobs are likely to expose returning prisoners to social situations that are conducive to crime .…”