Incarceration and Fragile Families

Bruce Western, Princeton UniversityLeonard M. Lopoo, Syracuse UniversitySara McLanahan, Princeton University

May 2004

This research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the Russell Sage Foundation

Incarceration and Family Stability

• The prison boom has made imprisonment a normal life event for young non-college African American men

• Low-education black couples have experienced a large drop in marriage rates and a large increase in non-marital birth rates

• Could incarceration be reducing the likelihood of marriage? Is this necessarily a bad thing?

Our Empirical Analysis• Incarceration is measured with fathers’ and

mothers’ reports in the Fragile Families Survey

• We construct a measure of father’s prior incarceration, using mothers’ and fathers’ data

• Prior incarceration is related to measures of divorce and cohabitation (longitudinal character of the data attempts to adjust for unobserved heterogeneity)

• Low marriage rates among ex-offenders may not be a bad outcome, if men are violent. We can also look at domestic violence

Useful Features of FF for Studying the Effects of Incarceration

• The survey asks mothers and fathers whether the father has ever been incarcerated

• The survey also provides detailed information about the status of the couple’s relationship, and asks mothers if they have ever been assaulted by their partners

• Survey data are currently available at two points in time

Mothers’ and Fathers’ Reports of Incarceration

  Father’s Report

Mother's Report

  Non-interview

No prison or Jail

Prison or Jail

Total

Non-interview 0.0% 4.8% 6.0% 3.8%

No prison/jail 59.7 76.0 31.9 66.5

Prison/jail 40.3 19.2 62.1 29.7

Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

N 432 1170 235 1837

Mothers’ and Fathers’ Reports of Incarceration

  Father’s Report

Mother's Report

  Non-interview

No prison or Jail

Prison or Jail

Total

Non-interview 0.0% 4.8% 6.0% 3.8%

No prison/jail 59.7 76.0 31.9 66.5

Prison/jail 40.3 19.2 62.1 29.7

Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

N 432 1170 235 1837

YY YN NY Miss. YY YN NY Miss. YY YN NY Miss.

01

02

03

04

05

0

Pe

rce

nt

Inca

rce

rate

d

Mom/Dad:

Father is Violent Father is Critical Father is Affectionate

Some Predictors of Marriage at 1 Year

  Ever Incarcerated?

  No Yes

Married at baseline 0.34 0.08

Cohabiting at baseline 0.37 0.44

HS dropout 0.27 0.42

College graduate 0.15 0.01

Will compromise 0.57 0.44

Drug or alcohol use 0.13 0.27

N 2797 1070

Incarceration Effects

  Cohabitation Marriage

  Baseline Effect Baseline Effect

Full Sample .284 -.055* .079 -.029*

(.019) (.009)

Blacks .258 -.022 .043 -.020*

(.024) (.008)

Whites .206 -.086* .145 -.062

(.037) (.035)

Hispanics .328 -.085* .120 -.023

    (.038)   (.024)

Aggregate Effects of Incarceration

  Observed Adjusted

All white men .58 .59

White men, non-college .53 .55

White men, HS dropouts .53 .56

All black men .40 .45

Black men, non-college .33 .40

Black men, HS dropouts .30 .43

Observed marriage rates and predicted marriage rates at an incarceration rate of zero, men aged 30-34, 1999

Implications of the Incarceration Effects

• Incarceration may have large aggregate effects on rates of marriage and cohabitation in poor urban communities with high incarceration rates

• Low marriage rates, although associated with social and economic disadvantage, may reduce women’s exposure to violence and crime

• We can also study patterns of domestic violence with the Fragile Families data

Fa

the

rs C

om

mitt

ing

Do

me

stic

Vio

len

ce (

%)

0

4

8

12

16

Not IncarceratedDrugsOtherViolence

Before Pregnancy During Pregnancy After Pregnancy

02

46

Pe

rce

nt

Re

po

rtin

g D

om

est

ic V

iole

nce Coresiding

Not coresiding

During Pregnancy After Pregnancy

Logistic Regression on Post-Pregnancy Domestic Violence

Incarceration for Violence 1.31 1.23

(4.17) (3.71)

Incarceration for Drugs .98 .91

(2.39) (2.14)

Incarceration for Other Offense 1.25 1.19

(5.32) (4.87)

Cohabiting .01 .11

(.04) (.48)

Marriage -.78 -.48

(1.91) (1.11)

Affectionate - -.22

(1.84)

Length of Relationship - -.09

(2.65)

Conclusions

• Analysis of Fragile Families data suggests that incarceration reduces the likelihood of marriage and cohabitation

• Incarceration effects have a large aggregate impact on marriage rates for non-college black couples

• Formerly-incarcerated men are more likely to be involved in domestic violence

• BUT, there are drug offenders are less likely to be violent than others, and these effects are offset if men are in strong relationships