Commentary: Could Linked Data Help Us to Better Understand the Macrolevel Consequences of Mass Imprisonment?

A theme among the articles by L. Andersen; Wakefield and Powell; and Berger and colleagues in this volume is that administrative data have certain strengths for studying the impacts of paternal incarceration on children that survey data lack, particularly in measuring the intervention of incarcerati...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 2016-05, Vol.665 (1), p.213-221
Main Author: Sabol, William J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Children
Children & youth
Data
Family
Imprisonment
Intervention
Juvenile delinquency
Parents & parenting
Trends
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:A theme among the articles by L. Andersen; Wakefield and Powell; and Berger and colleagues in this volume is that administrative data have certain strengths for studying the impacts of paternal incarceration on children that survey data lack, particularly in measuring the intervention of incarceration. The first two articles report microlevel effects of paternal incarceration on children, and the Berger et al. article describes some macrosocial trends in the relationships between incarcerated individuals with CPS-involved children. Although the Berger et al. article does not directly relate to the issues addressed in the L. Andersen article (impacts on education and crime outcomes for children of incarcerated fathers) or the Wakefield and Powell article (impacts on children’s aggression and externalizing behaviors), it implies that we should expect to observe a relationship between the microlevel effects and the macrolevel indicators, such as juvenile crime, education, foster care, and other measures of the well-being of youth. Developing a better understanding of the relationship between the micro- and macroeffects can help us to learn whether impacts of paternal incarceration on very young children (as in the Wakefield and Powell article) endure over time or whether the causes of youth involvement in crime are more proximate in time to the events. They can help us to understand the trends in the macrolevel indicators. For example, if the aggression and externalizing behavior findings that Wakefield and Powell report are correlated with longer-term juvenile delinquency, then we should expect to see the effects in the delinquency rates for youth in later years.
ISSN:0002-7162
1552-3349
DOI:10.1177/0002716216633446