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Children of the Prison Boom: Mass Incarceration and the Future of American Inequality (Studies in Crime and Public Policy)
Wakefield, Sara; Wildeman, Christopher
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Description for Children of the Prison Boom: Mass Incarceration and the Future of American Inequality (Studies in Crime and Public Policy)
paperback. Drawing upon broadly representative survey data and qualitative interviews, Children of the Prison Boom describes the devastating effects of America's experiment in mass incarceration for a generation of vulnerable children. Series: Studies in Crime and Public Policy. Num Pages: 250 pages, 37 illustrations. BIC Classification: 1KBB; JFSP1; JKVP. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 211 x 142 x 15. Weight in Grams: 312.
An unrelenting prison boom, marked by stark racial disparities, pulled a disproportionate number of young black men into prison in the last forty years. In Children of the Prison Boom, Sara Wakefield and Christopher Wildeman draw upon broadly representative survey data and interviews to describe the devastating effects of America's experiment in mass incarceration on a generation of vulnerable children tied to these men. In so doing, they show that the effects of mass imprisonment may be even greater on the children left behind than on the men who were locked up. Parental imprisonment has been transformed from an event affecting only the unluckiest of children-those with parents seriously involved in crime-to one that is remarkably common, especially for black children. This book documents how, even for children at high risk of problems, paternal incarceration makes a bad situation worse, increasing mental health and behavioral problems, infant mortality, and child homelessness. Pushing against prevailing understandings of and research on the consequences of mass incarceration for inequality among adult men, these harms to children translate into large-scale increases in racial inequalities. Parental imprisonment has become a distinctively American way of perpetuating intergenerational inequality-one that should be placed alongside a decaying public education system and concentrated disadvantage in urban centers as a factor that disproportionately touches, and disadvantages, poor black children. More troubling, even if incarceration rates were reduced dramatically in the near future, the long-term harms of our national experiment in the mass incarceration of marginalized men are yet to be fully revealed. Optimism about current reductions in the imprisonment rate and the resilience of children must therefore be set against the backdrop of the children of the prison boom-a lost generation now coming of age.
Product Details
Format
Paperback
Publication date
2016
Publisher
Oxford University Press United States
Number of pages
250
Condition
New
Series
Studies in Crime and Public Policy
Number of Pages
250
Place of Publication
New York, United States
ISBN
9780190624590
SKU
V9780190624590
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 15 to 20 working days
Ref
99-6
About Wakefield, Sara; Wildeman, Christopher
Sara Wakefield is Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University. Christopher Wildeman is Associate Professor of Policy Analysis and Management at Cornell University
Reviews for Children of the Prison Boom: Mass Incarceration and the Future of American Inequality (Studies in Crime and Public Policy)
A burgeoning research program studies the effects of the American prison boom by examining the social and economic life of men and women after incarceration. In their important book, Wakefield and Wildeman go a step further, studying how children are affected when a parent is sent to prison. Through careful analyses, the authors document the profound effects of mass incarceration on the lived experience of child poverty in America.
Bruce Western, Harvard University
Wakefield and Wildeman examine the deleterious consequences of high rates of incarceration for one of the most powerless and vulnerable groups in society - children. They make a strong case that parental incarceration has not only short-term negative effects, but also long-term consequences in solidifying and extending social inequalities among children. This book is a must read for scholars and policymakers interested in how high rates incarceration in the U. S. have affected children, especially those who are black and poor.
John H. Laub, University of Maryland, College Park
Wakefield and Wildeman provide a masterful and chilling account of how three decades of mass incarceration have lowered the life chances of America's most vulnerable children. In so doing, they show that the criminal justice system now plays a vital role
along with schools, neighborhoods, and families - in the maintenance of childhood inequality.Sara McLanahan, Princeton University
Much has been written about the consequences of mass incarceration for low skilled men, the labor market, and racial inequality among adults in the U.S. The collateral consequences for children have, until now, been less well-documented. Drawing on rigorous empirical analysis, Sara Wakefield and Christopher Wildeman make great strides in filling this gap by documenting changes in the proportion of children with an incarcerated parent, the cumulative risks of experiencing a parental incarceration, as well as how these factors vary by race and social class. They paint a rich portrait of the contemporary and long-term consequences, good and bad, of parental incarceration and uncover a fundamental source of inequality in the United States.
Steven Raphael, University of California, Berkeley
This is the book's key, powerful contribution: there is ample evidence that parental imprisonment compromises children's life chances, but the sheer scale
and unequal impactof the prison boom has serious consequences for long-term inequality in US society. This excellent book should be compulsory reading for those making decisions about criminal justice policy, and for anyone seeking a better understanding of inequality in contemporary society.Times Higher Education
...[A]n original contribution to criminology...
CHOICE
This is an important book. It does a remarkable service for academics, policy makers, and practitioners by powerfully identifying in three data sets the casual effects of the incarceration of fathers and children.
American Journal of Sociology
Bruce Western, Harvard University
Wakefield and Wildeman examine the deleterious consequences of high rates of incarceration for one of the most powerless and vulnerable groups in society - children. They make a strong case that parental incarceration has not only short-term negative effects, but also long-term consequences in solidifying and extending social inequalities among children. This book is a must read for scholars and policymakers interested in how high rates incarceration in the U. S. have affected children, especially those who are black and poor.
John H. Laub, University of Maryland, College Park
Wakefield and Wildeman provide a masterful and chilling account of how three decades of mass incarceration have lowered the life chances of America's most vulnerable children. In so doing, they show that the criminal justice system now plays a vital role
along with schools, neighborhoods, and families - in the maintenance of childhood inequality.Sara McLanahan, Princeton University
Much has been written about the consequences of mass incarceration for low skilled men, the labor market, and racial inequality among adults in the U.S. The collateral consequences for children have, until now, been less well-documented. Drawing on rigorous empirical analysis, Sara Wakefield and Christopher Wildeman make great strides in filling this gap by documenting changes in the proportion of children with an incarcerated parent, the cumulative risks of experiencing a parental incarceration, as well as how these factors vary by race and social class. They paint a rich portrait of the contemporary and long-term consequences, good and bad, of parental incarceration and uncover a fundamental source of inequality in the United States.
Steven Raphael, University of California, Berkeley
This is the book's key, powerful contribution: there is ample evidence that parental imprisonment compromises children's life chances, but the sheer scale
and unequal impactof the prison boom has serious consequences for long-term inequality in US society. This excellent book should be compulsory reading for those making decisions about criminal justice policy, and for anyone seeking a better understanding of inequality in contemporary society.Times Higher Education
...[A]n original contribution to criminology...
CHOICE
This is an important book. It does a remarkable service for academics, policy makers, and practitioners by powerfully identifying in three data sets the casual effects of the incarceration of fathers and children.
American Journal of Sociology