The Neuropsychological Consequences of being Arrested and Incarcerated

There has been growing interest in understanding the nexus between neuropsychological functioning and involvement in crime and delinquency among criminologists during the past few decades. Part of the reason for this interest is because there is a line of research showing that neuropsychological deficits are involved in the etiology of serious and violent offenders. At the same time, relatively little criminological research has focused on understanding what causes variation in neuropsychological functioning. There is some reason to believe, however, that being processed through the criminal justice system might confer an increased risk to developing deficits in neuropsychological functioning. The current study addressed this gap in the literature by examining data drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. The results of the analysis revealed that being arrested and incarcerated were related to reductions in neuropsychological functioning in early adulthood for both males and females. When the analyses were confined only to those participants who had been arrested, being incarcerated had inconsistent effects on neuropsychological functioning for males and females.