Intergenerational Educational Effects of Mass Imprisonment in America

Abstract

In some American schools, about a fifth of the fathers have spent time in prison during their child's primary education. We examine how variation across schools in the aggregation and concentration of the mass imprisonment of fathers is associated with their own children's intergenerational educational outcomes and ''spills over'' into the attainments of other students. We assess the association of this interinstitutional and intergenerational ''prison through school pathway'' with downward and blocked educational achievement. Educational and economic resources and other predisposing variables partially explain school-linked effects of paternal imprisonment on measures of children's educational outcomes. However, we find that the net negative school-level association of paternal imprisonment with educational outcomes persists even after we introduce school-and individual-level measures of a wide range of mediating processes and extraneous control variables. We discuss paternal imprisonment as a form of ''marked absence.'' The significance of elevated levels of paternal imprisonment in schools is perhaps most apparent in its negative association with college completion, the educational divide that now most dramatically disadvantages individuals and groups in American society.

It Deepens Like a Coastal Shelf: Educational Mobility and Social Capital in Germany

“…Likewise, the parental well-being can serve as an explanation. Bad parental health conditions (Roos et al 2013) or parental imprisonment (Hagan and Foster 2012) are severe social distortions that can lead to academic failure.…”

Impact of Maternal Incarceration on the Criminal Justice Involvement of Adult Offspring

“…Fewer in number are the studies that have explored whether type of parental incarceration (i.e., paternal vs. maternal) has a differential impact on outcomes among children (Foster and Hagan 2013;Hagan and Foster 2012b;Lee, Fang, and Luo 2013;Nebbitt et al 2013;Tasca, Rodriguez, and Zatz 2011).…”

Cumulative risks of paternal and maternal incarceration in Denmark and the United States

“…As parental imprisonment has become common for U.S. children, researchers have started to test the association between parental incarceration and the health and well-being of infants, children, and adolescents. Research in this area has shown not only that paternal incarceration is a risk factor for poor health and well-being among U.S. infants (Wildeman 2012), children (Geller et al 2012;Haskins 2014;Turney 2014;Wildeman 2011, 2013;Wildeman 2010), and adolescents (Foster and Hagan 2007;Lee, Fang and Luo 2013;Roettger and Boardman 2012;), but also that maternal incarceration is a risk factor for poor child health and well-being across the life-course (Lee, Fang, and Luo 2013;Cho 2009;Hagan and Foster 2012;Huebner and Gustafson 2007;Turney and Wildeman 2015;Wildeman and Turney 2014). Similar associations exist in a host of developed democracies, including England (e.g., Murray and Farrington 2005), Norway (e.g., Murray, Janson and Farrington 2007), the Netherlands (e.g., Besemer et al 2011), and Denmark (e.g., .…”