Christopher Wildeman

Demonstrates that having a romantic partner incarcerated damages women’s health, as it creates additional stress for already distressed poor, minority women.

Provides new estimates of spatial and racial/ethnic variation in children’s lifetime risks of child welfare system involvement, as well as relative risks of these events. Discusses In the U.S., state-level investigation risks ranged from 14% to 63%, confirmed maltreatment risks from 3% to 27%, foster care placement risks from 2% to 18%, and risks of parental rights termination from 0% to 8%, with great racial/ethnic variation in all of these.

Examines population-level associations between paternal jail incarceration during pregnancy and infant birth outcomes in New York City. Mentions after accounting for parental sociodemographic characteristics, maternal health behaviors, and maternal health care access, paternal incarceration during pregnancy remains associated with late preterm birth, low birthweight, small size for gestational age, and NICU admission.

Finds that children in foster care are in poor mental and physical health relative to children in the general population, children across specific family types, and children in economically disadvantaged families. Shows that children adopted from foster care, compared with children in foster care, have significantly higher odds of having some health problems. Concludes that children in foster care are a vulnerable population in poor health, partially as a result of their early life circumstances.

Argues that that with high rates of connectedness to prisoners and the vast racial inequality in them, it is likely that mass imprisonment has fundamentally reshaped inequality not only for the adult men for whom imprisonment has become common, but also for their friends and families.

Demonstrates that racial disparities in childhood behavioral problems would be significantly smaller, if not for the impact of the recent prison boom.

Our estimates of health disparities are seriously biased and understandings of the causes of various diseases are potentially distorted by failure to include prisoners and former prisoners in social statistics and studies of the development of diseases.

An incarcerated father increases physically aggressive behaviors by boys, leading to possible intergenerational transmission of contact with the criminal justice system.

Reviews the research on the consequences of incarceration for families.

Shows that black children are much more likely than white children to experience the disadvantage of imprisoned fathers, especially black children whose fathers did not finish high school.