Economics, Public Policy Researchers to Explore Effects of Sentencing on Children

08 June 2016 2:22PM

Duke University researchers Lindsey Eldred Kozecke and Elizabeth Gifford were awarded a $150,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to examine how parents’ interaction with the criminal justice system affects children’s health and well-being. 

The project will analyze North Carolina administrative data going back more than a decade and explore whether and how the presence of children in a defendant’s life affects sentencing. 

“In this country, 2 million children have an incarcerated parent, and we know that these children are at risk for physical and mental health declines, substance use, homelessness, and poor school outcomes – among other things,” said Eldred Kozecke. “We don’t know whether harsher sentences are causally related to these child outcomes. Healthy children is a priority, and changes to the criminal justice system may be necessary to achieve that.”

The goal is to inform efforts and reform mandatory sentencing guidelines, particularly when a child is involved. One potential change, according to Eldred Kozecke, would be for the criminal justice system to “acknowledge that alternative sentencing options, such as home arrest or supervised probation, can have a positive impact on child health without necessarily sacrificing the deterrent effect of the criminal justice system.”

Eldred Kozecke is a research scholar and managing editor of the American Journal of Health Economics. Gifford is a research scientist and director of both the Durham Children’s Data Center and Program Evaluation Services for the Center. Professor Frank Sloan will also collaborate on the project.