New Article: Akua Amaning, Rebecca Vallas, & Christian E. Weller, America’s Broken Criminal Legal System Contributes to Wealth Inequality, CAP, (Dec. 13, 2022). Overview below:
An estimated 70 million to 100 million Americans—roughly 1 in 3 U.S. adults—have an incarceration, conviction, or arrest record, which is a direct consequence of decades of mass incarceration and overcriminalization. Meanwhile, according to a Center for American Progress analysis, nearly half of U.S. children now have at least one parent with such a record. In addition, failed criminal legal policies have saddled an ever-expanding swath of the nation’s population with the stigma of a criminal record. America’s failed experiment with mass incarceration and overcriminalization—compounded by the proliferation of criminal background checks in the digital era—has upended countless lives. Moreover, it has birthed a nationwide criminal records crisis that, in turn, has become a significant driver of poverty and racial inequality.
Over the past decade, a large and growing body of research has documented a host of negative, long-term economic consequences—often called collateral consequences—associated with interaction with the criminal legal system. Appropriately, particular attention has been paid to the dramatic toll that a conviction and/or incarceration record takes on an individual’s employment and earnings prospects in an era when roughly 9 in 10 U.S. employers use background checks in hiring. In one recent watershed analysis, researchers at the Brennan Center for Justice found that formerly incarcerated Americans see their subsequent earnings reduced by an average of 52 percent—and that, in the aggregate, Americans with criminal convictions face lost wages in excess of $372 billion every year. Research has also documented an alarming rise in fines, fees, and other criminal legal debts that can total thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars, diminishing families’ ability to save for the future and protect against financial shocks and uncertainty.
However, scant attention has been paid to the effects of incarceration on savings and ownership in the United States. This report seeks to add to the existing research literature by highlighting the consequences of criminal legal system involvement for household wealth. Moreover, given that America’s failed criminal legal policies disproportionately harm Black and Hispanic individuals, families, and communities, this report also examines mass incarceration as an underappreciated driver of America’s racial wealth gap.
Poverty Law 