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Background and aimsDespite the high prevalence of substance use among people in the US criminal justice system, little is known about the incidence of overdose mortality by use patterns, drug convictions and supervision setting. We examined the associations between these characteristics and overdose mortality.DesignRetrospective cohort study.Setting and participantsIndividuals sentenced to prison, jail, probation or jail plus probation for a felony conviction in Michigan, USA from 2003 to 2006.MeasurementsUsing the National Death Index, we assessed overdose mortality to December 2012. We calculated overdose mortality rates by pre-sentence opioid use, drug convictions and supervision setting. Multivariable analyses were conducted using competing risks regression with time-varying covariates.FindingsAmong 140 266 individuals followed over a mean of 7.84 years [standard deviation (SD) = 1.52], 14.9% of the 1131 deaths were due to overdose (102.8 per 100 000 person-years). Over the follow-up, more than half of overdose deaths occurred in the community (57.7%), nearly a third (28.8%) on probation and 12.8% on parole. The adjusted risk of overdose death was lower on probation [hazard ratio (HR) = 0.71, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.60, 0.85] than in the community without probation or parole (HR = 1.00) but not significantly different on parole (HR = 1.13, 95% CI = 0.87, 1.47). Pre-sentence daily opioid use (HR = 3.54, 95% CI = 3.24, 3.87) was associated with an increased risk. Drug possession (HR = 1.11, 95% CI = 0.93, 1.31) and delivery convictions (HR = 0.92, 95% CI = 0.77, 1.09) were not significantly associated with overdose mortality.ConclusionsBased on the absolute or relative risk, parole, probation and community settings are appropriate settings for enhanced overdose prevention interventions. Ensuring that individuals with pre-sentence opioid use have access to harm reduction and drug treatment services may help to prevent overdose among people involved with the criminal justice system.

One of the goals of imprisonment is to reduce violence1. Although imprisonment has risen dramatically since the 1970s, its effects on future violent crime are poorly understood2. This study's objective was to examine the effect of imprisonment on violent crime in the community among individuals on the policy margin between prison and probation sentences. Drawing on data from a population-based cohort of individuals convicted of a felony in Michigan between 2003 and 2006 (n = 111,110) and followed through June 2015, we compared the rates of commission of violent crime committed by individuals sentenced to prison with those of individuals sentenced to probation using a natural experiment based on the random assignment of judges to criminal cases. Being sentenced to prison had no significant effects on arrests or convictions for violent crimes after release from prison, but imprisonment modestly reduced the probability of violence if comparisons included the effects of incapacitation during imprisonment. These results suggest that for individuals on the current policy margin between prison and probation, imprisonment is an ineffective long-term intervention for violence prevention, as it has, on balance, no rehabilitative or deterrent effects after release.

Because of racially disproportionate imprisonment rates, the literature on mass incarceration has focused on the labor market consequence of imprisonment and the implications of those effects for racial inequality. Yet, the effects of imprisonment itself, as distinct from conviction, are not well understood. The authors leverage a natural experiment based on the random assignment of judges to felony cases in Michigan to examine the causal effect of being sentenced to prison as compared to probation, stratifying by race and work history. The most widespread effect of imprisonment on employment occurs through incapacitation in prison, both for the initial prison sentence and through the heightened risk of subsequent imprisonment. Negative postrelease effects of imprisonment on employment, employment stability, and employment outside the secondary labor market are concentrated among whites with a presentence work history. Postrelease effects of imprisonment on employment among those with no work history are positive but fade over time.

This article discusses an instrumental variable approach for analyzing censored data that includes many instruments that are weakly associated with the endogenous variable. We study the effect of imprisonment on time to employment using an administrative data on all individuals sentenced for felony in Michigan in the years 2003–2006. Despite the large body of research on the effect of prison on employment, this is still a controversial topic, especially since some of the studies could have been affected by unmeasured confounding. We take advantage of a natural experiment based on the random assignment of judges to felony cases and construct a vector of instruments based on judges’ ID that can avoid the confounding bias. However, some of the constructed instruments are weakly associated with the sentence type, that is, the endogenous variable, which can potentially lead to misleading results. Using a dimension reduction technique, we propose a novel semiparametric estimation procedure in a survival context that is robust to the presence of many weak instruments. Specifically, we construct a test statistic based on the structural failure time model and provide inference by inverting the testing procedure. Under some assumptions, the optimal choice of the test statistic has also been derived. Analyses show a significant negative impact of imprisonment on time to employment which is consistent with some of the previous results. Our simulation studies highlight the importance of accounting for weak instruments in the analyses in terms of both bias and inflated type-I error rates.

Although the labor market consequences of incarceration in prison have been central to the literature on mass incarceration, punishment, and inequality, other components of the growing criminal justice system have received less attention from sociologists. In particular, the rise of mass incarceration was accompanied by an even larger increase in community supervision. In this paper, we examine the labor market effects of one frequently experienced aspect of post-prison parole, short-term custody for parole violations. Although such sanctions are viewed as an alternative to returning parole violators to prison, they have the potential to affect labor market outcomes in ways similar to imprisonment, including both adverse and positive effects on earnings. We estimate that parolees lost approximately 37 percent of their earnings in quarters during which they were in short-term custody. Although their earnings tended to increase in the quarter immediately following short-term custody-consistent with the stated intentions of such sanctions-parolees experienced further earnings loss over the longer term after such sanctions. In the third quarter following a short-term custody sanction, earnings are lowered by about 13 percent. These associations are larger for those who were employed in the formal labor market before their initial incarceration.

A substantial contributor to prison admissions is the return of individuals recently released from prison, which has come to be known as prison's "revolving door." However, it is unclear whether being sentenced to prison itself has a causal effect on the probability of a subsequent return to prison or on criminal behavior. To examine the causal effect of being sentenced to prison on subsequent offending and reimprisonment, we leverage a natural experiment using the random assignment of judges with different propensities for sentencing offenders to prison. Drawing on data on all individuals sentenced for a felony in Michigan between 2003 and 2006, we compare individuals sentenced to prison to those sentenced to probation, taking into account sentence lengths and stratifying our analysis by race. Results show that being sentenced to prison rather than probation increases the probability of imprisonment in the first 3 years after release from prison by 18 percentage points among nonwhites and 19 percentage points among whites. Further results show that such effects are driven primarily by imprisonment for technical violations of community supervision rather than new felony convictions. This suggests that more stringent postprison parole supervision (relative to probation supervision) increases imprisonment through the detection and punishment of low-level offending or violation behavior. Such behavior would not otherwise result in imprisonment for someone who had not already been to prison or who was not on parole. These results demonstrate that the revolving door of prison is in part an effect of the nature of postprison supervision.

Cultural sociologists and other social scientists have increasingly used the concept of narrative as a theoretical tool to understand how individuals make sense of the links between their past, present, and future, how individuals construct social identities from cultural building blocks, and how culture shapes social action and individual behavior. Despite its richness, we contend that the narratives literature has yet to grapple with narrative change and stability when structural constraints or barriers challenge personal narratives and narrative identities. Particularly for marginalized groups, the potential incompatibility of personal narratives with daily experiences raises questions about the capacity of narratives to influence behavior and decision-making. In this study we draw on prospective longitudinal data on the reentry narratives and narrative identities of former prisoners to understand how narratives do and not change when confronted with contradictory experiences and structural constraints. We identify and describe the processes generating narrative change and stability among our subjects. These findings inform a framework for studying narrative change and stability based on four factors: the content of the narrative itself, the structural circumstances experienced by the individual, the institutional contexts in which the individual is embedded, and the social networks in which the individual is embedded.

The United States has experienced dramatic increases in both incarceration rates and the population of insecurely housed or homeless persons since the 1980s. These marginalized populations have strong overlaps, with many people being poor, minority, and from an urban area. That a relationship between homelessness, housing insecurity, and incarceration exists is clear, but the extent and nature of this relationship is not yet adequately understood. We use longitudinal, administrative data on Michigan parolees released in 2003 to examine returning prisoners' experiences with housing insecurity and homelessness. Our analysis finds relatively low rates of outright homelessness among former prisoners, but very high rates of housing insecurity, much of which is linked to features of community supervision, such as intermediate sanctions, returns to prison, and absconding. We identify risk factors for housing insecurity, including mental illness, substance use, prior incarceration, and homelessness, as well as protective "buffers" against insecurity and homelessness, including earnings and social supports.

Since the mid-1970s the United States has experienced an enormous rise in incarceration and accompanying increases in returning prisoners and in post-release community correctional supervision. Poor urban communities are disproportionately impacted by these phenomena. This review focuses on two complementary questions regarding incarceration, prisoner reentry, and communities:(1) whether and how mass incarceration has affected the social and economic structure of American communities, and (2) how residential neighborhoods affect the social and economic reintegration of returning prisoners. These two questions can be seen as part of a dynamic process involving a pernicious "feedback" loop, in which mass incarceration undermines the structure and social organization of some communities, thus creating more criminogenic environments for returning prisoners and further diminishing their prospects for successful reentry and reintegration.

In dominant theories of criminal desistance, marital relationship formation is understood to be a key "turning point" away from deviant behavior. Empirical studies supporting this claim have largely focused on the positive role of marriage in men's desistance from crime, and relatively few studies have examined the role that non-marital relationships may play in desistance. Drawing on 138 longitudinal in-depth interviews with 22 men and women reentering society from prison, this paper extends the scope of desistance research by additionally considering the significance of more fleeting and fluid relationships, and the diverse processes through which romantic relationships of all sorts are linked with criminal behaviors. We present an empirically-based typology detailing six processes, grouped within three conceptual categories, through which romantic relationships had their effects. These pathways include material circumstances, social bonds and interactions, and emotional supports and stressors. We also consider gender differences in these processes. While more tenuous bonds to marginally conventional partners would seem to exert little effect, as one of the few relationships and social roles available to many former prisoners, we found that they wielded important influence, if not always in a positive direction.

Former prisoners are at high risk of economic insecurity due to the challenges they face in finding employment and to the difficulties of securing and maintaining public assistance while incarcerated. This study examines the processes through which former prisoners attain economic security, examining how they meet basic material needs and achieve upward mobility over time. It draws on unique qualitative data from in-depth, unstructured interviews with a sample of former prisoners followed over a two to three year period to assess how subjects draw upon a combination of employment, social supports, and public benefits to make ends meet. Findings reveal considerable struggle among our subjects to meet even minimal needs for shelter and food, although economic security and stability could be attained when employment or public benefits were coupled with familial social support. Sustained economic security was rarely achieved absent either strong social support or access to long-term public benefits. However, a select few were able to leverage material support and social networks into trajectories of upward mobility and economic independence. Policy implications are discussed.

Jails serve as the front doors of carceral systems, with 10 million jail admissions annually. The people admitted to jail often end up with probation sentences. As a result, there are approximately 3.5 million people on probation supervision in the United States. Despite the widespread reach of these institutions, little sociological research exists on the collateral consequences of jail and probation supervision. We focus on these two forms of criminal justice supervision by examining the use of split sentences, an understudied yet common type of criminal sanction that combines a period of jail incarceration with an ordinary probation sentence. Using rich administrative data, we leverage a natural experiment that relies upon the random assignment of judges to felony cases to estimate causal effects of receiving a split sentence compared to receiving a probation-only sentence. Our identification strategy allows us to isolate the effect of receiving a split sentence among people also sentenced to probation. Our results show that split sentences increase the risk of future prison admissions and, among whites with presentence employment, decrease formal labor market employment. We find that most of the effect of a split sentence on new prison admissions is driven by greater risk of technical violations of probation conditions stemming from higher levels of probation supervision, suggesting that intensification of criminal justice involvement is a self-fulfilling prophecy initiated by the judge's decision to start a probation sentence with a local jail term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]