Work

The Consequences of Incarceration for Mortality in the United States

Year: 2020

Type: article

Abstract: Previous research has suggested that incarceration has negative implications for individuals' well-being, health, and mortality. Most of these studies, however, have not followed former prisoners over an extended period and into older adult ages, when the risk of health deterioration and mortality is the greatest. Contributing to this literature, this study is the first to employ the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to estimate the long-run association between individual incarceration and mortality over nearly 40 years. We also supplement those analyses with data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79). We then use these estimates to investigate the implications of the U.S. incarceration regime and the post-1980 incarceration boom for the U.S. health and mortality disadvantage relative to industrialized peer countries (the United Kingdom).

Source: Demography

DOI: 10.1007/s13524-020-00869-5

Authors: Sebastian Daza, Alberto Palloni, Jerrett Jones

Institution: University of Wisconsin–Madison

Language: English

Topic: Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Good health and well-being, Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: bronze

Funders: University of Wisconsin-Madison, National Institute on Aging, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development