Incarceration and Health
Title
Incarceration and Health
Author
Wildeman, Christopher
Research Area
Social Institutions
Topic
Institutions of Social Control
Abstract
In this essay, I start by briefly discussing the foundational research in this area, which, similar to the study of the consequences of mass imprisonment more broadly, is mostly new. Indeed, all of the foundational research in this field (with the exception of The Prison Community and The Society of Captives), which considered the mental and physical health of current and former inmates, as well as their mortality risks, was conducted only in the past 25 years. In general, this research finds that (i) the imprisonment period appears to have negative effects on mental health but some paradoxical benefits for physical health and mortality and (ii) former inmates have more health problems and higher mortality risk than a comparison group in the free population. After reviewing this literature, I then review some new research in this area, which shows how incarceration shapes (i) the mental health of current and former inmates, (ii) the health of women connected to current and former inmates, and (iii) the health of the children of current and former inmates. This new research is unique not just because of the breadth of outcomes it considers but also because it uses much more rigorous methods to tease out causal relationships (especially for mental health). I close by discussing directions for research, focusing especially on overcoming obstacles to causal inference, considering effects on inequality, and further returning to the roots of this field, which focused on the acute effects of incarceration on the mental health of inmates.