Mass Probation: Effects of Sentencing Severity on Mental Health for Black and White Individuals.

BACKGROUND: Incarceration is associated with negative impacts on mental health. Probation, a form of community supervision, has been lauded as an alternative. However, the effect of probation versus incarceration on mental health is unclear. Our objective was to estimate the impact on mental health of reducing sentencing severity at individuals' first adult criminal-legal encounter. METHODS: We used the US National Longitudinal Survey on Youth 1997, a nationally representative dataset of youth followed into their mid-thirties. Restricting to those with an adult encounter (arrest, charge alone or no sentence, probation, incarceration), we used parametric g-computation to estimate the difference in mental health at age 30 (Mental Health Inventory-5) if (1) everyone who received incarceration for their first encounter had received probation and (2) everyone who received probation had received no sentence. RESULTS: Among 1835 individuals with adult encounters, 19% were non-Hispanic Black and 65% were non-Hispanic White. Median age at first encounter was 20. Under hypothetical interventions to reduce sentencing, we did not see better mental health overall (Intervention 1, incarceration to probation: RD = -0.01; CI = -0.02, 0.01; Intervention 2, probation to no sentence: RD = 0.00; CI = -0.01, 0.01) or when stratified by race. CONCLUSION: Among those with criminal-legal encounters, hypothetical interventions to reduce sentencing, including incremental sentencing reductions, were not associated with improved mental health. Future work should consider the effects of preventing individuals' first criminal-legal encounter.

Highly public anti-Black violence is associated with poor mental health days for Black Americans.

Highly public anti-Black violence in the United States may cause widely experienced distress for Black Americans. This study identifies 49 publicized incidents of racial violence and quantifies national interest based on Google searches; incidents include police killings of Black individuals, decisions not to indict or convict the officer involved, and hate crime murders. Weekly time series of population mental health are produced for 2012 through 2017 using two sources: 1) Google Trends as national search volume for psychological distress terms and 2) the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) as average poor mental health days in the past 30 d among Black respondents (mean weekly sample size of 696). Autoregressive moving average (ARMA) models accounted for autocorrelation, monthly unemployment, season and year effects, 52-wk lags, news-related searches for suicide (for Google Trends), and depression prevalence and percent female (for BRFSS). National search interest varied more than 100-fold between racial violence incidents. Black BRFSS respondents reported 0.26 more poor mental health days during weeks with two or more racial incidents relative to none, and 0.13 more days with each log10 increase in national interest. Estimates were robust to sensitivity tests, including controlling for monthly number of Black homicide victims and weekly search interest in riots. As expected, racial incidents did not predict average poor mental health days among White BRFSS respondents. Results with national psychological distress from Google Trends were mixed but generally unsupportive of hypotheses. Reducing anti-Black violence may benefit Black Americans' mental health nationally.

Policing and Population Health: Past, Present, and Future.

Policy Points A growing body of research suggests that policing, as a form of state-sanctioned racial violence, operates as a social determinant of population health and racial or ethnic health disparities. A lack of compulsory, comprehensive data on interactions with police has greatly limited our ability to calculate the true prevalence and nature of police violence. While innovative unofficial data sources have been able to fill these data gaps, compulsory and comprehensive data reporting on interactions with police, as well as considerable investments in research on policing and health, are required to further our understanding of this public health issue.

State-Level Variation in the Cumulative Prevalence of Child Welfare System Contact, 2015-2019.

Background: Prior estimates of the cumulative risks of child welfare system contact illustrate the prominence of this system in the lives of children in the United States (U.S.). However, these estimates report national data on a system administered at the state and local levels and are unable to detail potential simultaneous geographic and racial/ethnic variation in the prevalence of these events. Methods: Using 2015-2019 data from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System and Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System, we use synthetic cohort life tables to estimate cumulative state- and race/ethnicity-specific risks by age 18 of experiencing: (1) a child protective services investigation, (2) confirmed maltreatment, (3) foster care placement, and (4) termination of parental rights for children in the U.S. Results: 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%. Racial/ethnic disparities in these risks varied greatly across states, with larger disparities at higher levels of involvement. Whereas Black children had higher risks of all events than white children in nearly all states, Asian children had consistently lower risks. Finally, ratios comparing risks of child welfare events show these prevalences did not move in parallel, across states or racial/ethnic groups. Contribution: This study provides new estimates of spatial and racial/ethnic variation in children's lifetime risks of maltreatment investigation, confirmed maltreatment, foster care placement, and termination of parental rights in the U.S., as well as relative risks of these events.

Risk of being killed by police use of force in the United States by age, race-ethnicity, and sex.

We use data on police-involved deaths to estimate how the risk of being killed by police use of force in the United States varies across social groups. We estimate the lifetime and age-specific risks of being killed by police by race and sex. We also provide estimates of the proportion of all deaths accounted for by police use of force. We find that African American men and women, American Indian/Alaska Native men and women, and Latino men face higher lifetime risk of being killed by police than do their white peers. We find that Latina women and Asian/Pacific Islander men and women face lower risk of being killed by police than do their white peers. Risk is highest for black men, who (at current levels of risk) face about a 1 in 1,000 chance of being killed by police over the life course. The average lifetime odds of being killed by police are about 1 in 2,000 for men and about 1 in 33,000 for women. Risk peaks between the ages of 20 y and 35 y for all groups. For young men of color, police use of force is among the leading causes of death.

Early life patterns of criminal legal system involvement: Inequalities by race/ethnicity, gender, and parental education.

BACKGROUND: Contacts with the criminal legal system have consequences for a host of outcomes. Still, early life age patterns of system involvement remain to be better understood. OBJECTIVE: We estimate cumulative risks of arrest, probation, and incarceration from childhood through early adulthood and assess disparities by race/ethnicity, gender, and parental education. METHODS: Data come from the Transition to Adulthood Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (n = 2,736). We use Kaplan-Meier curves and Cox regression models to estimate cumulative risks of arrest, probation, and incarceration across the early life course and document disparities by race/ethnicity, gender, and parental education, as well as at their intersections. RESULTS: Criminal legal system involvement is common among recent cohorts, but Black and Latinx boys and young men face especially high risks. Among Black men whose highest-educated parent completed high school or less, an estimated six in ten had been arrested, four in ten had experienced probation, and four in ten had been incarcerated by age 26. Among Latinx men whose highest-educated parent completed high school or less, an estimated four in ten had been arrested and one in four had been incarcerated by age 26. Black women also experienced high risks, with an estimated one in four arrested by age 26. CONTRIBUTION: We document early life patterns of criminal legal system involvement among young people who came of age during the expansion of proactive policing and mass incarceration in the United States, providing important context for understanding the role of the system in generating and exacerbating life course inequalities.

Barring progress: The influence of paternal incarceration on families' neighborhood attainment.

A growing body of literature has recognized that incarceration has implications beyond the offender, with detrimental effects reverberating onto families. In this study, we use the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 3288) to investigate the relationships between paternal incarceration and the neighborhood outcomes of the children of incarcerated fathers and their mothers. Specifically, we examine whether children whose fathers are currently and/or have recently been incarcerated experience more residential instability, live in more socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods, and/or live in less socially cohesive neighborhoods. We find that paternal incarceration is associated with moving more frequently, greater socioeconomic neighborhood disadvantage, and lower social cohesion for the children of incarcerated fathers and their mothers, though some of these relationships depend on the timing of paternal incarceration. Our findings have important implications for understanding the societal costs of incarceration, the nature of neighborhood attainment and inequality for families facing paternal incarceration, and the processes through which some families are sorted into their neighborhood contexts.

Risk of Police-Involved Death by Race/Ethnicity and Place, United States, 2012-2018.

OBJECTIVES: To estimate the risk of mortality from police homicide by race/ethnicity and place in the United States. METHODS: We used novel data on police-involved fatalities and Bayesian models to estimate mortality risk for Black, Latino, and White men for all US counties by Census division and metropolitan area type. RESULTS: Police kill, on average, 2.8 men per day. Police were responsible for about 8% of all homicides with adult male victims between 2012 and 2018. Black men's mortality risk is between 1.9 and 2.4 deaths per 100 000 per year, Latino risk is between 0.8 and 1.2, and White risk is between 0.6 and 0.7. CONCLUSIONS: Police homicide risk is higher than suggested by official data. Black and Latino men are at higher risk for death than are White men, and these disparities vary markedly across place. Public Health Implications. Homicide reduction efforts should consider interventions to reduce the use of lethal force by police. Efforts to address unequal police violence should target places with high mortality risk.

Promises and Pitfalls of Using Digital Traces for Demographic Research.

The digital traces that we leave online are increasingly fruitful sources of data for social scientists, including those interested in demographic research. The collection and use of digital data also presents numerous statistical, computational, and ethical challenges, motivating the development of new research approaches to address these burgeoning issues. In this article, we argue that researchers with formal training in demography-those who have a history of developing innovative approaches to using challenging data-are well positioned to contribute to this area of work. We discuss the benefits and challenges of using digital trace data for social and demographic research, and we review examples of current demographic literature that creatively use digital trace data to study processes related to fertility, mortality, and migration. Focusing on Facebook data for advertisers-a novel "digital census" that has largely been untapped by demographers-we provide illustrative and empirical examples of how demographic researchers can manage issues such as bias and representation when using digital trace data. We conclude by offering our perspective on the road ahead regarding demography and its role in the data revolution.

Using Twitter for Demographic and Social Science Research: Tools for Data Collection and Processing.

Despite recent and growing interest in using Twitter to examine human behavior and attitudes, there is still significant room for growth regarding the ability to leverage Twitter data for social science research. In particular, gleaning demographic information about Twitter users-a key component of much social science research-remains a challenge. This article develops an accurate and reliable data processing approach for social science researchers interested in using Twitter data to examine behaviors and attitudes, as well as the demographic characteristics of the populations expressing or engaging in them. Using information gathered from Twitter users who state an intention to not vote in the 2012 presidential election, we describe and evaluate a method for processing data to retrieve demographic information reported by users that is not encoded as text (e.g., details of images) and evaluate the reliability of these techniques. We end by assessing the challenges of this data collection strategy and discussing how large-scale social media data may benefit demographic researchers.

A heavy burden: the cardiovascular health consequences of having a family member incarcerated.

OBJECTIVES: We examined the association of family member incarceration with cardiovascular risk factors and disease by gender. METHODS: We used a sample of 5470 adults aged 18 years and older in the National Survey of American Life, a 2001-2003 nationally representative cross-sectional survey of Blacks and Whites living in the United States, to examine 5 self-reported health conditions (diabetes, hypertension, heart attack or stroke, obesity, and fair or poor health). RESULTS: Family member incarceration was associated with increased likelihood of poor health across all 5 conditions for women but not for men. In adjusted models, women with family members who were currently incarcerated had 1.44 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.03, 2.00), 2.53 (95% CI = 1.80, 3.55), and 1.93 (95% CI = 1.45, 2.58) times the odds of being obese, having had a heart attack or stroke, and being in fair or poor health, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Family member incarceration has profound implications for women's cardiovascular health and should be considered a unique risk factor that contributes to racial disparities in health.

Parental incarceration and child mortality in Denmark.

OBJECTIVES: We used Danish registry data to examine the association between parental incarceration and child mortality risk. METHODS: We used a sample of all Danish children born in 1991 linked with parental information. We conducted discrete-time survival analysis separately for boys (n = 30 146) and girls (n = 28 702) to estimate the association of paternal and maternal incarceration with child mortality, controlling for parental sociodemographic characteristics. We followed the children until age 20 years or death, whichever came first. RESULTS: Results indicated a positive association between paternal and maternal imprisonment and male child mortality. Paternal imprisonment was associated with lower child mortality risks for girls. The relationship between maternal imprisonment and female child mortality changed directions depending on the model, suggesting no clear association. CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate that the incarceration of a parent may influence child mortality but that it is important to consider the gender of both the child and the incarcerated parent.

Longitudinal associations between poverty and obesity from birth through adolescence.

OBJECTIVES: We examined the relationship between timing of poverty and risk of first-incidence obesity from ages 3 to 15.5 years. METHODS: We used the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (1991-2007) to study 1150 children with repeated measures of income, weight, and height from birth to 15.5 years in 10 US cities. Our dependent variable was the first incidence of obesity (body mass index ≥ 95th percentile). We measured poverty (income-to-needs ratio < 2) prior to age 2 years and a lagged, time-varying measure of poverty between ages 2 and 12 years. We estimated discrete-time hazard models of the relative risk of first transition to obesity. RESULTS: Poverty prior to age 2 years was associated with risk of obesity by age 15.5 years in fully adjusted models. These associations did not vary by gender. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that there are enduring associations between early life poverty and adolescent obesity. This stage in the life course may serve as a critical period for both poverty and obesity prevention.

Racial/ethnic disparities in hypertension prevalence: reconsidering the role of chronic stress.

OBJECTIVES: We investigated the association between anticipatory stress, also known as racism-related vigilance, and hypertension prevalence in Black, Hispanic, and White adults. METHODS: We used data from the Chicago Community Adult Health Study, a population-representative sample of adults (n = 3105) surveyed in 2001 to 2003, to regress hypertension prevalence on the interaction between race/ethnicity and vigilance in logit models. RESULTS: Blacks reported the highest vigilance levels. For Blacks, each unit increase in vigilance (range = 0-12) was associated with a 4% increase in the odds of hypertension (odds ratio [OR] = 1.04; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.00, 1.09). Hispanics showed a similar but nonsignificant association (OR = 1.05; 95% CI = 0.99, 1.12), and Whites showed no association (OR = 0.95; 95% CI = 0.87, 1.03). CONCLUSIONS: Vigilance may represent an important and unique source of chronic stress that contributes to the well-documented higher prevalence of hypertension among Blacks than Whites; it is a possible contributor to hypertension among Hispanics but not Whites.

Incarceration, maternal hardship, and perinatal health behaviors.

Parental incarceration is associated with mental and physical health problems in children, yet little research directly tests mechanisms through which parental incarceration could imperil child health. We hypothesized that the incarceration of a woman or her romantic partner in the year before birth constituted an additional hardship for already-disadvantaged women, and that these additionally vulnerable women were less likely to engage in positive perinatal health behaviors important to infant and early childhood development. We analyzed 2006-2010 data from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment and Monitoring System to assess the association between incarceration in the year prior to the birth of a child and perinatal maternal hardships and behaviors. Women reporting incarceration of themselves or their partners in the year before birth of a child had .86 the odds (95 % CI .78-.95) of beginning prenatal care in the first trimester compared to women not reporting incarceration. They were nearly twice as likely to report partner abuse and were significantly more likely to rely on WIC and/or Medicaid for assistance during pregnancy. These associations persist after controlling for socioeconomic measures and other stressors, including homelessness and job loss. Incarceration of a woman or her partner in the year before birth is associated with higher odds of maternal hardship and poorer perinatal health behaviors. The unprecedented scale of incarceration in the US simultaneously presents an underutilized public health opportunity and constitutes a social determinant of health that may contribute to disparities in early childhood development.

A comparison of skin tone discrimination among African American men: 1995 and 2003.

This study investigated perceptions of skin tone discrimination among adult African American men. Research suggests that through negative African American stereotypes, out-group members (Whites) perceive light-skinned African Americans favorably and dark-skinned African Americans unfavorably. However, it is unclear how treatment by in-group members (other African Americans) uniquely affects men. Using data from the 1995 Detroit Area Study and the 2003 National Survey of American Life, we investigated these relationships among African American men representing a wide range of socioeconomic groups. We found that African American men's perceptions of out-group and in-group treatment, respectively, were similar across time. Light-skinned men perceived the least out-group discrimination while dark-skinned men perceived the most out-group discrimination. In appraisals of skin tone discrimination from in-group members, medium-skinned men perceived the least discrimination while both light- and dark-skinned men perceived more in-group discrimination. Additionally, men of lower social economic groups were more affected by skin tone bias than others. Future research should explore the influence of these out- and in-group experiences of skin tone discrimination on social and psychological functioning of African American men.

Consequences of Family Member Incarceration: Impacts on Civic Participation and Perceptions of the Legitimacy and Fairness of Government.

Political participation and citizens' perceptions of the legitimacy and fairness of government are central components of democracy. In this article, we examine one possible threat to these markers of a just political system: family member incarceration. We offer a unique glimpse into the broader social consequences of punishment that are brought on by a partner's or parent's incarceration. We argue that the criminal justice system serves as an important institution for political socialization for the families of those imprisoned, affecting their attitudes and orientations toward the government and their will and capacity to become involved in political life. We draw from ethnographic data collected by one of the authors, quantitative data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, and interviews with recently released male prisoners and their female partners. Our findings suggest that experiences of a family member's incarceration complicate perceptions of government legitimacy and fairness and serve as a barrier to civic participation.

Male twinning after the 2008 Obama election: A test of symbolic empowerment.

On November 4, 2008, Barack Obama was elected the first Black President of the United States. His campaign and electoral win served as a symbol of hope for a more just future, fostering an "Obama effect" that appears associated with improved well-being among non-Hispanic (NH) Black communities. Situating the Obama election within the symbolic empowerment framework, we consider the potentially protective role of the Obama election on NH Black fetal death, an important but understudied measure of perinatal health that has stark racial disparities. Using restricted-use natality files from the National Center for Health Statistics, we proxy fetal death using the male twin rate (number of twins per 1000 male live births). Male twins have a relatively high risk of in utero selection that is sensitive to maternal and environmental stressors, making the twin rate an important marker of fetal death. We then estimate interrupted time-series models to assess the relation between the Obama election and male twin rates among NH Black births across monthly conception cohorts (February 2003-October 2008). Greater-than-expected male twin rates signal less susceptibility to fetal loss. Results indicate a 4.5% higher male twin rate among all NH Black cohorts exposed in utero to the Obama election, after accounting for historical and NH white trends (p < 0.005). The greater-than-expected rates concentrated among births conceived in the months preceding Obama's nomination at the Democratic National Convention and Obama's presidential win. These results suggest a salutary perinatal response to election events that likely reduced NH Black fetal loss. They also indicate the possibility that sociopolitical shifts can mitigate persisting NH Black-NH white disparities in perinatal health.

Missing Black males among preterm births in the US, 1995 to 2019.

BACKGROUND: In the US, non-Hispanic (NH) Black birthing persons show a two-fold greater risk of fetal death relative to NH white birthing persons. Since males more than females show a greater risk of fetal death, such loss in utero may affect the sex composition of live births born preterm (PTB; <37 weeks gestational age). We examine US birth data from 1995 to 2019 to determine whether the ratio of male to female preterm (i.e., PTB sex ratios) among NH Black births falls below that of NH whites and Hispanics. METHODS: We acquired data on all live births in the US from January 1995 to December 2019. We arrayed 63 million live births into 293 "conception cohort" months of which 2,475,928 NH Black, 5,746,953 NH white, and 2,511,450 Hispanic infants were PTB. We used linear regression methods to identify trend and seasonal patterns in PTB sex ratios. We also examined subgroup differences in PTB sex ratios (e.g., advanced maternal ages, twin gestations, and narrower gestational age ranges). RESULTS: The mean PTB sex ratio for NH Black births over the entire test period (1.06, 95% Confidence Interval [CI]: 1.05, 1.07) is much lower than that for NH white births (1.18, 95% CI: 1.17, 1.19). NH Black PTB sex ratios are especially low for twins and for births to mothers 35 years or older. Only NH white PTB sex ratios show a trend over the test period. CONCLUSIONS: Analysis of over 10 million PTBs reveals a persistently low male PTB frequency among NH Black conception cohorts relative to NH white cohorts. Low PTB sex ratios among NH Black births concentrate among subgroups that show an elevated risk of fetal death. PTB sex ratios may serve as an indicator of racial/ethnic and subgroup differences in fetal death, especially among male gestations.