Mechanisms and Extent of Penal Inequality

People with criminal records face state-imposed penalties in addition to prison, probation, and criminal fines. These “collateral sanctions” restrict housing, welfare, work, and education, among others. Many sanctions affect individuals with misdemeanor records and sentences outside of prison, and about a third include those arrested or charged but never convicted. Sociologists Joshua Kaiser and David McElhattan will examine the role of collateral sanctions in social exclusion, measure collateral sanctions across states over time, and investigate how their effects vary by penal contact, race, and class. They will analyze data from six sources, including data from the Uniform Crime Reporting program, Shannon et al.’s (2017) estimates of felony convictions and state data on penal supervision, and the Statistical Abstract of the United States for their study.