Overlapping Systems: Race and Ethnic Disparities in Parental Rights Termination Following Incarceration

• In Event: The Consequences of Criminal Justice System Contact for Families and Children

Abstract

A large body of research suggests long term consequences of early involvement in the child welfare and criminal legal systems. Such consequences are often intergenerational but the data challenges to linking child welfare and criminal legal system involvement are substantial. In this paper, we analyze the most serious of interventions in each system, that of parental rights termination stemming from an incarceration spell. Using linked administrative data from Wisconsin, we first describe how often parental incarceration leads to parental rights termination. We then ask whether race and ethnic background substantially changes the strength of the link between incarceration and loss of parental rights. In so doing, our work contributes to a bourgeoning literature on system overlap in an era of mass incarceration.

Authors

• Sara Wakefield, Rutgers University

• Lawrence M. Berger, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Christopher Wildeman, Duke University