What Mass Incarceration Costs Black Women

• In Event: The Financial Toll of Incarceration for Individuals, Families, and Communities

Abstract

Reverberating consequences of incarceration for wealth, health, and well-being of incarcerated persons and their families have been well documented. However, the economic value of unpaid care work and stress-related health conditions for Black women who partner or parent with formerly incarcerated men has not previously been estimated. Drawing a rigorous economic meta-analysis of the referred impacts of incarceration on women partners and co-parents, I estimate the costs of Black male hyper-incarceration for Black women from 1978-2020. Results imply that ending the over-incarceration of Black Americans, though it is a critical and urgent task, would be grossly insufficient to address the intersecting race-gender inequalities it has helped to build and sustain. Criminal legal system reform and abolition proposals should include redress for these gendered damages.

Author

• Tasseli McKay, University of North Carolina School of Medicine