Social capital and its impacts on prison life: is visitation a conduit?

This paper examines how social capital prior to incarceration may contribute to experiences during incarceration and whether visitation allows social capital to have protective effects. We investigate, too, whether disadvantages experienced during incarceration by racial and ethnic minorities, women...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Anderson, Claudia (Author) ; Cochran, Joshua C. (Author) ; Toman, Elisa L. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: 2022
In: Crime & delinquency
Year: 2022, Volume: 68, Issue: 4, Pages: 644-683
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
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Keywords:
Incarceration
Visitation
Inequality
Description
Summary:This paper examines how social capital prior to incarceration may contribute to experiences during incarceration and whether visitation allows social capital to have protective effects. We investigate, too, whether disadvantages experienced during incarceration by racial and ethnic minorities, women, and individuals in poverty can be explained in part by reduced social capital. We test these ideas using national-level survey data from state prison inmates and a series of regression and mediation analyses. Three main findings emerge: (1) Pre-prison social capital reduces in-prison deviance and improves optimism about reentry. (2) Social capital operates through visitation to reduce social isolation. (3) There is some limited evidence that group disparities in in-prison experiences can be explained by inequalities in social capital.
ISSN:1552-387X
DOI:10.1177/0011128720977445