Parental Incarceration and Child Well-Being: A Methodological and Theoretical Critique of Propensity Score Analysis

• 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

There are roughly 2.3 million people in jail or prison in the United States, including 1.2 million who are parents to children under the age of 18 (The Pew Charitable Trusts, 2010). Consequently, nearly 2.7 million minor children have an incarcerated parent, and many others either have experienced parental incarceration or will at some point in the future. Thus, researchers have investigated the consequences of parental incarceration for the next generation, often documenting negative outcomes across a broad range of domains. More recently, scholars have focused on further refining our understanding of parental incarceration and child well-being by drawing on longitudinal studies and employing rigorous statistical approaches, often with the goal of addressing potential confounding factors. A particularly popular method among scholars of incarceration effects is propensity score analysis. Yet to date, there has been little empirical or theoretical discussion regarding the appropriateness of this methodological approach for the study of the intergenerational consequences of incarceration. Using data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (TARS), we provide a simulation of propensity score analysis to examine its suitability for the study of the consequences of parental incarceration on child well-being. We find that prior research in this area has only loosely adhered to key assumptions of this approach, and has poorly modeled selection processes. Yet beyond these methodological flaws, we argue that this approach is theoretically inappropriate as it focuses narrowly on the incarceration event to the neglect of other factors that—along with parental incarceration—contribute to childhood adversity.

Authors

• Jennifer Ellen Copp, Florida State University

• Peggy C. Giordano, Bowling Green State University

• Monica A. Longmore, Bowling Green State Univ