Heterogeneous and racialized impacts of state incarceration policies on birth outcomes in the United States

IF 2.7 1区 社会学 Q1 SOCIOLOGY
Social Forces Pub Date : 2025-08-21 DOI:10.1093/sf/soaf127
Courtney E Boen, Elizabeth F Bair, Hedwig Lee, Atheendar S Venkataramani
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Abstract

While state incarceration policies have received much attention in research on the causes of mass incarceration in the United States, their roles in shaping population health and health disparities remain largely unknown. Merging data on state incarceration policies to vital statistics birth records from 1984 to 2004, we examine the impacts of two signature state incarceration policies adopted during the “tough on crime” era of the 1990s—three strikes and truth-in-sentencing—on Black and White birth outcomes. Using a difference-in-differences event study research design that models the dynamic impacts of these policies over time, we find that these policies had opposing effects on birth outcomes. Birth weight outcomes—including mean birth weight and low birth weight—for Black infants worsened markedly in the year three strikes policies were adopted. By contrast, birth outcomes for Black and White infants gradually improved after truth-in-sentencing policies were adopted. The discordant findings point to distinct, countervailing mechanisms by which sentencing policies can affect population health. We provide suggestive evidence that three strikes policies adversely impacted Black birth outcomes through affective mechanisms, by inducing highly racialized, stigmatizing, and criminalizing public discourse around the time of policy adoption. Our results indicate that truth-in-sentencing likely impacted birth outcomes via material mechanisms, by gradually reducing community incarceration and crime rates. Altogether, these findings point to the need to further interrogate state criminal legal system policies for their impacts on population health, considering whether, how, and for whom these policies result in health impacts.
美国州监禁政策对出生结果的异质和种族化影响
虽然在对美国大规模监禁原因的研究中,各州监禁政策受到了很多关注,但它们在形成人口健康和健康差距方面的作用在很大程度上仍然未知。将1984年至2004年的州监禁政策数据与人口统计出生记录相结合,我们研究了20世纪90年代“严厉打击犯罪”时期采用的两项标志性州监禁政策——三振出局和如实判决——对黑人和白人出生结果的影响。使用差异事件的差异研究设计来模拟这些政策随时间的动态影响,我们发现这些政策对出生结果有相反的影响。黑人婴儿的出生体重结果——包括平均出生体重和低出生体重——在三振政策实施的那一年明显恶化。相比之下,在实行量刑真实政策后,黑人和白人婴儿的出生结果逐渐改善。这些不一致的发现表明,量刑政策可以通过不同的、相互抵消的机制影响人口健康。我们提供了暗示性的证据,表明三次罢工政策通过情感机制对黑人出生结果产生不利影响,在政策采用期间,通过诱导高度种族化、污名化和刑事化的公共话语。我们的研究结果表明,判决的真实性可能通过物质机制影响出生结果,通过逐渐减少社区监禁和犯罪率。总之,这些发现表明需要进一步询问国家刑事法律制度政策对人口健康的影响,考虑这些政策是否,如何以及对谁造成健康影响。
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来源期刊
Social Forces
Social Forces SOCIOLOGY-
CiteScore
6.30
自引率
6.20%
发文量
123
期刊介绍: Established in 1922, Social Forces is recognized as a global leader among social research journals. Social Forces publishes articles of interest to a general social science audience and emphasizes cutting-edge sociological inquiry as well as explores realms the discipline shares with psychology, anthropology, political science, history, and economics. Social Forces is published by Oxford University Press in partnership with the Department of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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