School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany (SUNY), Albany, NY, USA.
Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA.
Demography. 2023 Aug 1;60(4):977-1003. doi: 10.1215/00703370-10863378.
Mass incarceration fundamentally altered the life course for a generation of American men, but sustained declines in imprisonment in recent years raise questions about how incarceration is shaping current generations. This study makes three primary contributions to a fuller understanding of the contemporary landscape of incarceration in the United States. First, we assess the scope of decarceration. Between 1999 and 2019, the Black male incarceration rate dropped by 44%, and notable declines in Black male imprisonment were evident in all 50 states. Second, our life table analysis demonstrates marked declines in the lifetime risks of incarceration. For Black men, the lifetime risk of incarceration declined by nearly half from 1999 to 2019. We estimate that less than 1 in 5 Black men born in 2001 will be imprisoned, compared with 1 in 3 for the 1981 birth cohort. Third, decarceration has shifted the institutional experiences of young adulthood. In 2009, young Black men were much more likely to experience imprisonment than college graduation. Ten years later, this trend had reversed, with Black men more likely to graduate college than go to prison. Our results suggest that prison has played a smaller role in the institutional landscape for the most recent generation compared with the generation exposed to the peak of mass incarceration.
大规模监禁从根本上改变了一代美国男性的人生轨迹，但近年来监禁率持续下降，这引发了人们对监禁如何影响当代人的疑问。本研究对全面了解美国当代监禁状况做出了三项主要贡献。首先，我们评估了去监禁化的范围。1999 年至 2019 年间，黑人男性监禁率下降了 44%，在所有 50 个州，黑人男性监禁人数的显著下降都显而易见。其次，我们的生命表分析表明监禁的终身风险显著降低。对于黑人男性来说，1999 年至 2019 年，他们的监禁终身风险下降了近一半。我们估计，在 2001 年出生的黑人男性中，不到五分之一的人会入狱，而 1981 年出生的那一代人中，每三人就有一人会入狱。第三，去监禁化改变了年轻人的机构经历。2009 年，年轻的黑人男性更有可能入狱，而不是大学毕业。十年后，这种趋势发生了逆转，黑人男性更有可能大学毕业而不是入狱。我们的研究结果表明，与经历大规模监禁高峰期的那一代人相比，监狱在最近一代人的机构环境中扮演的角色更小。
