The Growth, Scope, and Spatial Distribution of People With Felony Records in the United States, 1948–2010

“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…”

“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).”

“Moran’s I is the most commonly used statistic for detecting spatial clustering (Cliff and Ord 1973; Cressie 1993; Haining 1990), providing a summary global measure of whether the null hypothesis of spatial randomness can be rejected.”

“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 %.”

“Nevertheless, people convicted of felonies face more substantial and frequently permanent consequences (Ewald and Uggen 2012; Travis 2005; Uggen and Stewart 2015).”

“This is an important consideration, given that much research addresses the likelihood of incarceration and its personal and collateral consequences (Wakefield and Uggen 2010).”

“2006; Tonry 1996), rates of conviction (Bridges and Steen 1998), and sentencing patterns (Steffensmeier et al.”

“2014), family concentration (Turney 2014; Wildeman 2009), and neighborhood clustering (Kirk 2008).”

“Variation in punishment rates by state is attributable to differences in economics, crime rates, demographics, politics, and sentencing laws (Barker 2006; Beckett and Western 2001; Greenberg andWest 2001; Jacobs and Helms 2001; Lynch 2010; Stucky et al. 2005).”

“2014), family concentration (Turney 2014; Wildeman 2009), and neighborhood clustering (Kirk 2008).”

“Although our analysis cannot provide a critical test of competing punishment theories, these results are in many ways consistent with theories based on neoconservatism, conflict, and group threat (Behrens et al. 2003; Garland 2001b; Wacquant 2012).”

“Contact with the criminal justice system incurs substantial social and demographic consequences, including restrictions on employment, housing, voting, and welfare receipt, as well as long-term effects on physical and mental health (Ewald and Uggen 2012; Massoglia 2008; Schnittker and John 2007).”

“approximately 38 % of white males) (Brame et al. 2014).”

“” Moreover, such concentration applies both to people in prison and to millions of nonincarcerated people with felony convictions (Phelps 2013).”

“Wildeman (2009) did the same for racial disparities among children in the likelihood of experiencing parental incarceration (see also Sykes and Pettit 2014).”

“2014), family concentration (Turney 2014; Wildeman 2009), and neighborhood clustering (Kirk 2008).”

“There is good reason to believe that the aggregate presence and relative size of populations with felony records have spillover effects on social institutions and processes, especially in communities of color (Schnittker et al. 2011; Wakefield and Uggen 2010).”

“Nationally, we assume that the majority of deportees are male (Golash-Boza 2015), multiplying the total number of deportees in each year by 0.9 to obtain male rates.”

“…enforcement (Durlauf and Nagin 2011) and communities (Clear and Frost 2014); however, states have continued to implement widely varying criminal justice policies, particularly in the extent to which they emphasize law enforcement, incarceration, and community supervision (Barker 2006; Phelps 2017).”

“states with higher rates of people with prison records experience lower access to and quality of health care, even for those who have never been incarcerated (Schnittker et al. 2015).”

“Criminologists are increasingly calling for a broad shift of resources away from incarceration (National Research Council 2014) and toward law enforcement (Durlauf and Nagin 2011) and communities (Clear and Frost 2014); however, states have continued to implement widely varying criminal justice policies, particularly…”

“Nevertheless, people convicted of felonies face more substantial and frequently permanent consequences (Ewald and Uggen 2012; Travis 2005; Uggen and Stewart 2015).”

“The cumulative risk of imprisonment for black men ages 20–34 without a high school diploma stands at 68 % compared with 21 % of black men with a high school diploma and 28 % for white men without a high school diploma (Pettit 2012).”

“People with any kind of criminal history experience wide-ranging penalties and disruptions in their lives, especially given the widespread availability of criminal background information (Lageson 2016; Uggen et al. 2014).”

“Most recently, Enns (2016) developed state-specific public opinion measures and showed how punitiveness helps explain variation in state incarceration rates since 1950.”

“Nationally, we assume that the majority of deportees are male (Golash-Boza 2015), multiplying the total number of deportees in each year by 0.”

“1 million persons were incarcerated on any given day in 2016, and almost 20 million persons had a felony conviction in the United States as of 2010.(3,4) Moreover, expansion of the US penal system has not been uniform; for example, in a study combining administrative, survey, and census data, an estimated 20% of black…”