How Many Lives Does Incarceration Actually Save? Accounting for Infant Mortality in the Incarceration Ledger

• In Event: 033 - Section on Crime, Law, and Deviance Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 02. Punishment and Incarceration 2

Abstract

The justifications for the dramatic expansion of the prison population in recent decades have focused on public safety. Prior research on the efficacy of incarceration offer support for such claims, suggesting that increased incarceration saves lives by reducing the prevalence of homicide. We challenge this view by arguing that the effects of mass incarceration include collateral infant mortality consequences that call into question the number of lives saved through increased imprisonment. Using an instrumental variable estimation on state-level data from 1978 to 2010, this article simultaneously considers the effects of imprisonment on homicide and infant mortality to examine whether mass incarceration has been a net mortality harm or benefit. Results suggest that while incarceration saves lives by lowering homicide rates, these gains are largely offset by the increases in infant mortality. Adjusted figures that count the number of increased infant deaths attributable to incarceration suggest that the net mortality benefits of imprisonment over the past three decades are 82% lower than previously thought. We discuss the implications of these findings for sociological research, public health, and criminal justice policy, and call for a new wave of research that simultaneously considers the peripheral, unintended costs of incarceration directly alongside the benefits.

Authors

• Michael T. Light, Purdue University

• Joey Marshall, Purdue University