Cohort Differences in the Cumulative Risk of Criminalization in Texas.

Area of Science:

• Criminology
• Sociology
• Public Health

Background:

• Estimating cumulative risk of imprisonment is key to understanding US incarceration trends and inequality.
• Data limitations hinder documentation of criminal legal contact below the level of imprisonment.
• Few studies assess risks beyond Black and White men, limiting understanding of broader population impacts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To estimate the prevalence of subfelony and felony criminal legal system contact (arrest, prosecution, conviction, incarceration).
• To analyze these risks across racial/ethnic groups (Black, White, Hispanic) and genders.
• To examine trends across five birth cohorts (1971-1995) using Texas administrative data.

Main Methods:

• Utilized over 25 years of administrative criminal record data from Texas.
• Calculated cumulative risks for various criminal legal events.
• Analyzed data for five birth cohorts spanning 1971 to 1995, encompassing Black, White, and Hispanic men and women.

Main Results:

• Subfelony contact (arrests, etc.) is 3-18 times more prevalent than felony conviction and incarceration.
• Subfelony criminalization is more widely distributed across the population than felony events.
• While felony risks decreased for some, subfelony criminalization remains high and increasingly unequal, particularly impacting Black women (e.g., 22% arrested by age 24 vs. <3% imprisoned).

Conclusions:

• Subfelony criminalization represents a pervasive and unequal facet of the criminal legal system.
• The high prevalence and unequal distribution of subfelony contact have significant implications for understanding 21st-century inequality.
• Findings underscore the need to address broader criminal legal system involvement, not just incarceration, to combat inequality.