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90
Crime and Incarceration: An Investigation into Effects of Health during Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood

Tuesday, June 25, 2019
Exhibit Hall C (Marriott Wardman Park Hotel)

Presenter: Sanjeev Kumar


In this paper, I examine whether health is one of the independent drivers of the phenomenon of mass incarceration in the U.S. The unprecedented growth in the penal system in the US during the last 4 decades has become a matter of serious concern not just for the social cost and the fiscal burden it places on the state and federal budgets, but also for its political and social ramifications. In the U.S. the incarceration rate has increased from 220 per 100,000 residents in 1980 to over 700 per 100,000 in 2012. I use the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to assess arrests and incarceration in adulthood. Previous research has identified many correlates of arrests and incarceration; however, their focus largely have been to investigate the effect of incarceration on health. To my knowledge, no study has evaluated the relationship between self-assessed health (SAH) and incarceration. Using the longitudinal nature of the data after controlling for the state level time invariant unobservable and other confounders, I show strong intertemporal associations between SAH status during adolescence and arrests and incarceration during the young adulthood. People who reported being in poor SAH during their adolescence are around 20 to 30% more likely to report arrests and incarceration in their mid-twenties and early thirties. In a longitudinal analysis of the change in health status over the six years period between adolescence and young adulthood, I find that only a positive change in health is associated with lower likelihood of incarceration. Interestingly, once I further account for unobservables through controlling for the lagged value of experience with criminal justice system (in addition to other covariates), we found that only those who experienced a positive change in their health status (in comparison to no change in SAH during the six-year period) are less likely to be arrested or incarcerated. Our results demonstrate need for a more comprehensive approach to health to stem the phenomenon of mass-incarceration. In light of the evidence that incarceration magnifies the health issues of the inmates both while they are incarcerated and even after their release, a more activist and targeted population health policies may be necessary to tackle the problem of mass incarceration.