In this paper, from the Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, the authors investigate the mechanisms whereby the local and distal incarceration of a family member affects household wealth, focusing on wealth disparities by race and education.

Using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), the Current Population Survey, and the Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities and Local Jails, the authors apply fixed-effects and probit models to estimate how a family member’s incarceration influences household assets and debt over panel waves.

The authors find that having an incarcerated family member reduced household assets by 64.3 percent and debt by 85.1 percent after they adjusted for the underrepresentation of institutionalization in SIPP data.

The authors also discuss these findings in the context of broader racial disparities in wealth and employment. Our findings demonstrate how contemporary patterns of mass incarceration contribute to the maintenance of social inequality in wealth and form barriers to economic security for other household members.