RT Article
T1 The impact of imprisonment on marriage and divorce: a risk set matching approach
JF Journal of quantitative criminology
VO 26
IS 2
SP 269
OP 300
A2 Apel, Robert
LA English
YR 2010
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1396136460
AB Marriage has a prominent place in criminological theory and research as one institution that has the potential to genuinely foster desistance from a criminal career. Mass imprisonment policies in the United States and elsewhere, therefore, pose a potential threat of increased crime if they impede the ability of ex-prisoners to reintegrate into society by stigmatizing them and limiting their chances in the marriage market. We use a long-term study of a conviction cohort in The Netherlands to ascertain the effect that first-time imprisonment has on the likelihood of marriage and divorce. The results suggest that the effect of imprisonment on the likelihood of marriage (among unmarried offenders) is largely a selection artifact, although there is very weak evidence for a short-lived impact that does not persist past the first year post-release. This is interpreted as a residual incapacitation effect. On the other hand, the results strongly suggest that the experience of incarceration leads to a substantially higher divorce risk among offenders who are married when they enter prison.
K1 Risk set matching
K1 Propensity score
K1 Marriage and divorce
K1 Incarceration
K1 Haftfolgen
K1 Eheschließung
K1 Scheidung
K1 Methodenfragen
DO 10.1007/s10940-009-9087-5