RT Article
T1 Debt, Incarceration, and Re-entry: a Scoping Review
JF American journal of criminal justice
VO 46
IS 2
SP 250
OP 278
A1 Harper, Annie
A2 Ginapp, Callie
A2 Bardelli, Tommaso
A2 Grimshaw, Alyssa
A2 Justen, Marissa
A2 Mohamedali, Alaa
A2 Thomas, Isaiah 1749-1831
A2 Puglisi, Lisa
LA English
YR 2021
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1764206118
AB People involved with the criminal justice system in the United States are disproportionately low-income and indebted. The experience of incarceration intensifies financial hardship, including through worsening debt. Little is known about how people who are incarcerated and their families are impacted by debt and how it affects their reentry experience. We conducted a scoping review to identify what is known about the debt burden on those who have been incarcerated and their families and how this impacts their lives. We searched 14 data bases from 1990 to 2019 for all original research addressing financial debt held by those incarcerated in the United States, and screened articles for relevance and extracted data from pertinent studies. These 31 studies selected for inclusion showed that this population is heavily burdened by debt that was accumulated in three general categories: debt directly from criminal justice involvement such as LFOs, preexisting debt that compounded during incarceration, and debts accrued during reentry for everyday survival. Debt was generally shown to have a negative effect on financial well-being, reentry, family structure, and mental health. Debts from LFOs and child support is very common among the justice-involved population and are largely unpayable. Other forms of debt likely to burden this population remain largely understudied. Extensive reform is necessary to lessen the burden of debt on the criminal justice population in order to improve reentry outcomes and quality of life.
K1 Incarceration
K1 Bills
K1 LFOs
K1 Debt
K1 Reentry
DO 10.1007/s12103-020-09559-9