The DOI matches its Crossref record; 51 of the 87 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The Growth, Scope, and Spatial Distribution of People With Felony Records in the United States, 1948–2010
Open accessAbstract
The steep rise in U.S. criminal punishment in recent decades has spurred scholarship on the collateral consequences of imprisonment for individuals, families, and communities. Several excellent studies have estimated the number of people who have been incarcerated and the collateral consequences they face, but far less is known about the size and scope of the total U.S. population with felony convictions beyond prison walls, including those who serve their sentences on probation or in jail. This article develops state-level estimates based on demographic life tables and extends previous national estimates of the number of people with felony convictions to 2010. We estimate that 3 % of the total U.S. adult population and 15 % of the African American adult male population has ever been to prison; people with felony convictions account for 8 % of all adults and 33 % of the African American adult male population. We discuss the far-reaching consequences of the spatial concentration and immense growth of these groups since 1980.
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“The results are staggering; more than nineteen million people in the United States carry the burden of a felony conviction.”
From The Rise of the Carceral State: Foundations and Contours of a Rapidly Changing Criminal Legal System (2025) · cites this paper as Shannon et al. 2017
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Citations
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“To explain these preferences, punishment scholars point to the neoconservative politics of late modernity (Garland 2001b), a “new penology” to manage high-risk populations (Feeley and Simon 1992), public sentiment (Tonry 2004), the use of criminal justice and welfare institutions to tie postindustrial workers to preca…”
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“Western and Pettit have shown that incarceration has become a routine life event for low-skilled black men—more common than serving in the military or earning a college degree (Pettit and Western 2004; Western 2006).”
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MethodRecidivism of Prisoners Released in 1994
Langan, P. A., & Levin, D. J. (2002) · Federal Sentencing Reporter · doi:10.1525/fsr.2002.15.1.58 · Cited by 1,008 · cited 1×
“Although re-arrest rates have increased over time, the overall reconviction and reincarceration rates used for this study are much more stable (Langan and Levin 2002:11).4 For probationers and jail inmates, the corresponding three-year failure rate is 36 %.”
But They All Come Back: Facing the Challenges of Prisoner Reentry
Travis, J. (2005) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.43-1271 · Cited by 913 · cited 2×
“Nevertheless, people convicted of felonies face more substantial and frequently permanent consequences (Ewald and Uggen 2012; Travis 2005; Uggen and Stewart 2015).”
Background
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Items 201–211 of 211
Felon-Jurors’ Impact on Deliberation Satisfaction: Do They Really “Infect” the Process?
Binnall, J. M., & Petersen, N. (2022) · The Justice system journal · doi:10.1080/0098261x.2022.2067018
“The present study adds to that body of evidence—providing policymakers valuable data that will hopefully inform ongoing legislative processes focused on reforming juror eligibility criteria for the nearly 21 million American citizens that bear the mark of a felony conviction (Shannon et al. 2017).”
BackgroundHolliday, R., Desai, A., Brenner, L., Elbogen, E. B., & Monteith, L. L. (2021) · Journal of Affective Disorders Reports · doi:10.1016/j.jadr.2021.100076
Giving a Voice to Those with Felony Convictions: A Call to Action.
Hill, K., Smith, T. R., Lane, S., & Shannon, S. K. S. (2020) · Social work · doi:10.1093/sw/swaa036
Self-citationThe Object Economy: “Alternative” Banking in Chicago
Degenshein, A. (2020) · doi:10.1177/1536504220902197
Binnall, J. M., & Petersen, N. (2019) · Psychiatry Psychology and Law · doi:10.1080/13218719.2019.1687047
“While there is diversity along attitudinal lines, in the United States the typical convicted felon is not conservative (75%), opposes the death penalty (72%), and has a mean legal legitimacy score of 22.6.”
BackgroundInfluentialOn the Political Economy of Felon Disenfranchisement
Ghosh, A., & Rockey, J. (2019) · Social Science Research Network · doi:10.2139/ssrn.3330565
“This uneven impact and growth is documented by Shannon et al. (2017).”
BackgroundReactionary Brokering: How Families Navigate the Strains of Jail Incarceration
Turney, K., Schmidt, S., Bhallamudi, I., Liu, A., & Torres, A. (2026) · Sociological Science · doi:10.15195/v13.a47
“T HE considerable expansion of the U.S. criminal legal system over the past 50 years has made incarceration a common experience, especially for socially and economically vulnerable population groups (Alexander 2010; Pettit and Western 2004; Shannon et al. 2017).”
The Voting and Redistributive Effects of Felon EnfranchisementPreprint
de León, M. M. P. (2023) · Social Science Research Network · doi:10.2139/ssrn.4604974
Reintegration in the Red: Navigating Child Support Arrears After Prison
Spencer-Suarez, K. N. (2021) · doi:10.7916/d8-0ng4-0b97
Too Large, Too Small, or Just Right? Assessing the Growth of Voter Registration Rates Since the NVRAPreprint
Stewart, C. H., III (2019) · SSRN Electronic Journal · doi:10.2139/ssrn.3446859 · Cited by 1
Stewart, C. H., III (2019) · SSRN Electronic Journal · doi:10.2139/ssrn.3316422 · Cited by 5
Metadata
- Authors
- Shannon, S. K. S., Uggen, C., Schnittker, J., Thompson, M., Wakefield, S., & Massoglia, M.
- Affiliations
- University of Georgia (US)
- University of Minnesota (US)
- University of Pennsylvania (US)
- Portland State University (US)
- Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (US)
- University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
- Corresponding author
- Shannon, Sarah K. S.
- Venue
- Demography
- Publisher
- Duke University Press
- Published
- 2017-09-11
- Volume
- 54
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 1795-1818
- ISSN
- 0070-3370 (ISSN-L)
- 1533-7790
- PMC
- PMC5996985
- OpenAlex
- W2755233168
- Cited by
- 356
- References
- 87
- Citations by year
- 2026: 30 · 2025: 44 · 2024: 41 · 2023: 32 · 2022: 46 · 2021: 36 · 2020: 75 · 2019: 35 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 4
- FWCI
- 88.95
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Demography (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- PDXScholar (Portland State University) (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P2CHD047873, P2CHD041023)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis
- Social Sciences › Law › Criminal Justice and Penology
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Crime Patterns and Interventions
- Keywords
- felony conviction, prison population, incarceration rates, state-level estimates, African American men, racial disparities in incarceration, criminal justice policy
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Black or African American, Crime, Demography, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Mortality, Prisoners, Prisons, Socioeconomic Factors, United States, Life Tables, Databases, Factual, Geographic Information Systems, Racial Groups, Young Adult, Criminals, Spatial Analysis
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