Intergenerational Transmission of Criminal Justice Contact

• In Event: Introducing PHDCN+: Sources and Consequences of Crime and Punishment over 25 Years (Panel 1 of 2)

Abstract

Criminologists have long been interested in the intergenerational transmission of criminal activity. Yet in the era of mass incarceration, it is worth considering how criminal justice contact is transmitted across generations to children of the prison boom and if parental criminal justice contact itself—above and beyond family criminality and other indicators of family troubles—plays a key role in this process. In this article, we use unique data from the PHDCN+ that combines rich data on a diverse sample of Chicago youth with nearly 25 years of data on contact with the criminal justice system to examine how crime and criminal justice contact are transmitted through families.

Authors

• Christopher Wildeman, Duke University

• Robert J. Sampson, Harvard University

• Garrett Baker, Duke University