An Analysis of The Effects of Mass Incarceration in Doing Time on The Outside by Donald Braman

In Doing Time on the Outside, anthropologist Donald Braman investigates an aspect of the effects of mass incarceration that is oftentimes neglected by other scholars. Through analyzing personal accounts of families with close relatives in prison and of those incarcerated as well, Braman claims that incarceration does not only punish the offenders, but it also directly affects their close family members. In Braman’s words (2004), incarceration brings social hardship into the lives of these families by “transforming social institutions of social exchange, kinship, and community,” devaluing reciprocity, and holding offenders less accountable to their families (p. 9).

Moreover, it is widely believed that incarceration is disproportionately high in disadvantaged communities because a lack of economic opportunity often leads young adults to engage in criminal activity. Braman, however, also focuses on the aftermath of incarceration by providing evidence that reveal another side of the relationship between poverty and incarceration: as he states, “many inner-city families not only experience incarceration because they are poor, but they are also poor because they experience incarceration” (Braman, 2004, p. 154). So, an important claim that Braman draws from his research is that incarceration exacerbates economic adversity, especially in already disadvantaged communities. One main reason that Braman provides in support of this key claim is that incarceration decreases economic opportunity for ex-offenders. A second reason is that incarceration affects families by inhibiting capital accumulation; and as a result, incarceration also decreases the wealth that the future generations of these families will inherit. Therefore, the economic adversity that results from incarceration not only affects prisoners upon their release due to a decrease in economic opportunity, but it also highly affects the prisoners’ families from the time of imprisonment onward.

As previously mentioned, Braman’s primary kind of evidence is a collection of personal accounts from interviews he conducted with offenders and their families—during the sentences and sometimes after release. The story of an offender named Clinton who cycled through the prison system multiple times primarily supports Braman’s argument that incarceration decreases economic opportunity for ex-offenders. Clinton was unable to find a job after his release, which both Clinton and Braman explained was due to his criminal record (Braman, 2004, p. 147). The personal accounts also reveal that both because of the higher expenses that the families of offenders face as a result of incarceration and the removal of a principal household provider, these families often have to use up their wealth in order to cover the new expenses.

For example, Braman discusses how some families resort to remortgaging their homes, which is a problem because it devalues their wealth. In one account, a family lost their home even after remortgaging and various others saw a decrease in the value of their homes due to remortgaging (Braman, 2004, p. 158). And not only does incarceration deplete families of their wealth, but it also inhibits them from accumulating capital, as they have to allocate more of their income to incarceration-related expenses. In addition, all of these economic adversities that are as a result of incarceration are evermore impacting in families from disadvantaged communities since they already had a limited income to begin with.

Braman’s claim about the relationship between incarceration and economic adversity is important to his central claim, which states that the effects of incarceration deeply impact the families of offenders in socioeconomic terms. First, because incarceration reduces the likelihood that a prisoner will earn a sustainable income after release, the economic adversity that families face upon incarceration—such as unexpected higher expenses and a reduced total household income—becomes a problem that is set to persist in the long term. This means that not only are offenders held less accountable for their responsibilities at home because they cannot provide for their families while incarcerated, but they are also unable to meet this responsibility after release because of the reduced income opportunities associated with a criminal record. Second, because incarceration inhibits capital accumulation, incarceration also affects future generations by decreasing the wealth that they will inherit.

The greater effects are that these next generations are likely to remain in poverty, their communities are likely to remain impoverished, and the correlation between poverty and incarceration is thus one in which one exacerbates the other and vice versa. According to Braman (2004), the bigger picture demonstrates that the decrease of economic exchange between offenders and their families gradually reduces kinship, trust, and social reciprocity in their communities (p. 162). In addition, this leads to a deterioration of familial values across generations, a deterioration that is again largely as a result of incarceration (Braman, 2004, p. 162).

An article by Bruce Western provides further evidence that support Braman’s conclusions about the relationship between incarceration and economic opportunity, although by analyzing different data. In “The Impact of Incarceration on Wage Mobility and Inequality,” Western (2002) investigates the access that ex-offenders have to steady jobs in which wage mobility is normally experienced (p. 527). With data drawn from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) from 1983 to 1999, Western analyzes the employment path of ex-offenders to look for wage changes. He finds that incarceration does not just reduce wage earnings for ex-offenders in general, but it also negatively affects their wage growth rate. Western (2002) finds that incarceration lowers wages by 10 to 20% and it affects wage mobility by up to 30% (p. 541).

Western’s article supports Braman’s finding that incarceration exacerbates economic adversity by decreasing economic opportunity. However, Western’s focus is primarily on wage mobility as economic opportunity, while most of Braman’s focus is on the challenge that ex-offenders face just in getting employed. This is because both researchers gather different data. The greatest difference in this data is that Western’s data is ranged over a longer period of time, allowing him to draw his conclusions. Also, in analyzing the evidence that Braman gathers from personal accounts such as that of Clinton’s—who resorted to drug-related activity once more after not finding a job as an ex-offender—it is reasonable for Braman to conclude that ex-offenders face a greater challenge in finding employment than those without a criminal record. It should be noted that Braman (2004) nevertheless acknowledges that when ex-offenders do find a job, “their earnings potential is significantly lowered when compared with that of non-offenders” (p. 155). However, his evidence alone is not sufficient enough to support this claim and instead he cites an outside source. Nevertheless, the general findings of both authors can be attributed to the same conclusion: that incarceration decreases economic opportunity.

An article by Michelle Lee Maroto also supports Braman, this time in his argument that incarceration inhibits capital accumulation. This article, titled “The Absorbing Status of Incarceration and its Relationship with Wealth Accumulation,” examines how and by how much incarceration affects both home ownership and wealth for ex-offenders, although it focuses on ex-offenders alone and not on their families like Braman’s research does (Maroto, 2014, p. 211). The study also draws data from NLSY dating from 1985 to 2008. Maroto (2014) finds that in comparison to non-offenders, ex-offenders are 5% less likely to own their homes (p. 207). In addition, the likelihood that they will own a home after incarceration decreases by an extra 28% when compared to the likelihood prior to incarceration (Maroto, 2014, p. 207). Also, ex-offenders’ wealth decreases by an average of $42,000 after release (Maroto, 2014, p. 207).

Both Braman’s and Maroto’s conclusions are comparable in finding that incarceration inhibits capital accumulation. Maroto finds that incarceration not only devalues wealth for ex-offenders, but it also decreases how likely they are to own a home after release. However, Braman’s evidence differs in focusing on the offenders’ families and how incarceration-related expenses affect their wealth from the start of imprisonment, such as by having to deplete their savings or sell their capital in order to meet these expenses. Nevertheless, Braman also discusses home ownership, although his evidence is once again insufficient due to the shorter time period of his study. In fact, his evidence regarding home ownership may also be unrepresentative of the greater population of ex-offenders and their families. For instance, while Braman includes a personal account that showcases how remortgaging and losing home ownership can be an effect of incarceration on an offender’s family, Maroto finds that only 5% of ex-offenders are less likely to own the homes that they owned prior to being incarcerated. Yet, Maroto’s findings support Braman in that incarceration greatly affects capital accumulation.

Lastly, some limitations found in all three studies hint at possible future areas of research on how incarceration may affect non-offenders. The three research reports mention the stigma oftentimes associated with incarceration. Braman once again focuses on the stigmatic effect that incarceration has on offenders and their families—particularly on the communities they come from. Western and Maroto briefly mention that the economic disadvantage that ex-offenders experience could be partly due to the stigma that the general public oftentimes associates with ex-offenders. While Braman gathers his evidence from personal accounts that confess experiencing stigma and feeling ashamed as a result of incarceration, the type of stigma that Western and Maroto discuss is less supported by research, because it is a stigma coming from the public that has not necessarily experienced incarceration in any way.

Further research should analyze whether this stigma that the general public associates with incarceration is influential to employers in their hiring decisions. This research could provide further answers that explain how incarceration exacerbates economic adversity, such as decreased economic opportunity, for both ex-offenders and even non-offenders. An important question that should be addressed is whether this stigma is particularly associated with the black community at large rather than only with ex-offenders, since the black community is the most affected by incarceration. Then, for example, if black men without a criminal record face employment challenges that are comparable to the challenges that black ex-offenders face, is it possible that these challenges for non-offending black men are also linked with incarceration? Research taking on this question could reveal the extent to which incarceration decreases economic opportunity for the black community in general.