Distinguishing Petty Offenders from Serious Criminals in the Estimation of Family Life Effects

Prior research on the consequences of imprisonment for the family suggest that incarceration of so-called petty offenders is most harmful for families, yet few studies provide a clear description of who is and is not a petty offender and how best to make such distinctions. We compare various ways of categorizing inmates (using preprison family involvement and characteristics related to criminality and child well-being) to better understand heterogeneity in the consequences of paternal incarceration for children. In our analysis, we find that differentiating between “harmful†and “helpful†fathers is rather difficult, and reform efforts that are overly reliant on criminal offense categories may not be the most gainful policy approach in terms of benefit to children. We also describe a small population of children who appear to benefit from paternal incarceration: children of fathers with severe substance abuse problems. The pattern of results suggests that providing alternative interventions to incarceration, rather than no intervention at all, is critical to improving outcomes for all children of incarcerated parents.