Parental incarceration and adolescent externalizing behaviors and substance use: Reconciling discrepant findings

Mass incarceration in the United States has led to millions of parents of minor children being incarcerated, many of whom are Black Americans. The consequences of parental incarceration have rippling effects across generations and result in poor social, economic, and health outcomes among children of incarcerated parents throughout the lifecourse. Research on the effects of parental incarceration on children has focused primarily on externalizing behaviors as a means to control crime and the intergenerational transmission of crime. However, such perspectives are rooted in racism and negates the role of structural racism in maintaining social and economic policies that keep Black American families and communities disenfranchised and under the control of the majority. Theoretical perspectives suggest that parental incarceration increases the risk of adolescent substance use and externalizing behaviors, while others suggest that parental incarceration decreases the risk of adolescent substance use and externalizing behaviors. However, when examining the literature, there are discrepant findings regarding the direction and magnitude of the association between parental incarceration and adolescent externalizing behaviors. This dissertation focuses on explaining reasons for and reconciling these discrepant findings, and exploring and expanding the literature on parental incarceration and adolescent substance use which has not been adequately synthesized to date. This dissertation consists of five chapters. The first chapter is an introduction to the dissertation. Chapter 2 is a systematic review of the literature on parental incarceration and adolescent cigarette, alcohol, and cannabis use. Chapter 3 is an empirical study that assessed the association between parental incarceration and past year adolescent alcohol and cannabis use, and externalizing behaviors using data from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study (Fragile Families). Fragile Families is well-suited for assessing the association between ...