The consequences of incarceration

The size of the penal system has grown so rapidly it now merits consideration alongside other key societal institutions. Consider that each year approximately as many men get out of prison as graduate college (National Center for Education Statistics, 2004), and that the number of people incarcerated (Glaze, 2010: 2) is roughly equivalent to the enrollment of all institutions that are classified as having high research activity (Snyder and Dillow, 2010: 326). Given this rapid and continued expansion of the “felon class” (Uggen, Manza, and Thompson, 2006), research on the consequences of incarceration is increasingly becoming a staple of sociological and criminological work, with a particular emphasis on the stratifying impact of the penal system. For instance, in the last 10 years, work has examined the impact of the penal system on a range of outcomes including wages (Western, 2002), health (Schnittker and John, 2007), infectious disease (Massoglia, 2008), childhood poverty (Wildeman, 2009), and political outcomes (Manza and Uggen, 2006). Wakefield and Wildeman (2011, this issue) make an important contribution to this literature. They find that children with an incarcerated father have higher levels of internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Furthermore, they suggest that racial disparities in childhood behavioral problems are noticeably larger because of the huge risk of parental imprisonment for Black children. Two notable aspects are found in this research. First, it demonstrates the intergenerational effects of incarceration. In doing so, the authors advance research beyond the typical focus on offenders and their partners. Second, the authors