Unintended Impacts of Sentencing Reforms and Incarceration on Family Structure in the United States, 1984-1998

This project sought to investigate a possible relationship
between sentencing guidelines and family structure in the United
States. The research team developed three research modules that
employed a variety of data sources and approaches to understand family
destabilization and community distress, which cannot be observed
directly. These three research modules were used to discover causal
relationships between male withdrawal from productive spheres of the
economy and resulting changes in the community and families. The
research modules approached the issue of sentencing guidelines and
family structure by studying: (1) the flow of inmates into prison
(Module A), (2) the role of and issues related to sentencing reform
(Module B), and family disruption in a single state (Module C). Module
A utilized the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program data for 1984 and
1993 (Parts 1 and 2), the 1984 and 1993 National Correctional
Reporting Program (NCRP) data (Parts 3-6), the Urban Institute's 1980
and 1990 Underclass Database (UDB) (Part 7), the 1985 and 1994
National Longitudinal Survey on Youth (NLSY) (Parts 8 and 9), and
county population, social, and economic data from the Current
Population Survey, County Business Patterns, and United States Vital
Statistics (Parts 10-12). The focus of this module was the
relationship between family instability, as measured by female-headed
families, and three societal characteristics, namely underclass
measures in county of residence, individual characteristics, and flows
of inmates. Module B examined the effects of statewide incarceration
and sentencing changes on marriage markets and family
structure. Module B utilized data from the Current Population Survey
for 1985 and 1994 (Part 12) and the United States Statistical
Abstracts (Part 13), as well as state-level data (Parts 14 and 15) to
measure the Darity-Myers sex ratio and expected welfare income. The
relationship between these two factors and family structure,
sentencing guidelines, and minimum sentences for drug-related crimes
was then measured. Module C used data collected from inmates entering
the Minnesota prison system in 1997 and 1998 (Part 16), information
from the 1990 Census (Part 17), and the Minnesota Crime Survey
(Part 18) to assess any connections between incarceration and family
structure. Module C focused on a single state with sentencing
guidelines with the goal of understanding how sentencing reforms and
the impacts of the local community factors affect inmate family
structure. The researchers wanted to know if the aspects of locations
that lose marriageable males to prison were more important than
individual inmate characteristics with respect to the probability that
someone will be imprisoned and leave behind dependent
children. Variables in Parts 1 and 2 document arrests by race for
arson, assault, auto theft, burglary, drugs, homicide, larceny,
manslaughter, rape, robbery, sexual assault, and weapons. Variables in
Parts 3 and 4 document prison admissions, while variables in Parts 5
and 6 document prison releases. Variables in Part 7 include the number
of households on public assistance, education and income levels of
residents by race, labor force participation by race, unemployment by
race, percentage of population of different races, poverty rate by
race, men in the military by race, and marriage pool by
race. Variables in Parts 8 and 9 include age, county, education,
employment status, family income, marital status, race, residence
type, sex, and state. Part 10 provides county population data. Part 11
contains two different state identifiers. Variables in Part 12
describe mortality data and welfare data. Part 13 contains data from
the United States Statistical Abstracts, including welfare and poverty
variables. Variables in Parts 14 and 15 include number of children,
age, education, family type, gender, head of household, marital
status, race, religion, and state. Variables in Part 16 cover
admission date, admission type, age, county, education, language,
length of sentence, marital status, military status, sentence, sex,
state, and ZIP code. Part 17 contains demographic data by Minnesota
ZIP code, such as age categories, race, divorces, number of children,
home ownership, and unemployment. Part 18 includes Minnesota crime
data as well as some demographic variables, such as race, education,
and poverty ratio.