Incarceration Trajectories and Mental Health Symptoms Among Incarcerated Women Who Are Mothers

Background and Purpose: Incarcerated women who are mothers are among the most marginalized populations in the United States. Research has shown that incarcerated mothers have a much higher prevalence of mental health problems compared to nonincarcerated mothers and incarcerated nonmothers. Some studies suggest that the mother’s elevated mental health problems are attributable to the stress and stigma associated with incarceration. Other studies found that the mother’s mental health problems are irrelevant to their incarceration experiences, but are driven by the cumulative disadvantages precede the incarceration such as poverty. As the effects of incarceration have been found to vary by the characteristics of the incarceration history, the divergent findings may occur from variations of the mother’s incarceration histories in different study samples. However, most of the existing research has treated incarceration as a dichotomous event, which masks significant heterogeneity in the mother’s incarceration histories. To advance our knowledge on the consequences of incarceration on the incarcerated mother’s mental health, a representative measure of their incarceration history that characterizes intraindividual changes over the life course and interindividual differences between subgroups is essential. In this study, we identified and characterized subgroups of incarcerated mothers that follow distinct incarceration trajectories and examined the association between their incarceration trajectories and mental health symptoms.

Research Approach: Data and samples: We used the Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities in 2004, a nationally representative longitudinal dataset with comprehensive incarceration history data, for analysis. The study sample was comprised of 2,585 mothers with incarceration histories.

Measures: Participants reported their incarceration experiences for each incarceration episode (i.e., type of correctional facilities incarcerated, type of offenses convicted, date of admission, age of incarceration, duration of incarceration, and whether sentenced as adults) and mental health symptoms in the past year (i.e., sadness, psychomotor agitation or retardation, delusions and hallucinations, and anger). Important criminogenic risk factors of the mother’s incarceration such as poverty were also collected.

Analysis: Repeated measures latent class analysis (RMLCA) was applied to this longitudinal incarceration dataset to identify subgroups of mothers following distinct incarceration trajectories. ANOVA and chi-square were employed to compare the characteristics of mothers with distinct incarceration trajectories. Logistic regression was then conducted to determine the association between the mother’s incarceration trajectories and their mental health symptoms.

Results: RMLCA revealed four subgroups of incarcerated mothers following distinct incarceration trajectories: the life-course-persistent offenders (5%), the adolescence-limited offenders (40%), the adolescence-delayed-onset offenders (36%), and the adulthood-onset offenders (19%). Compared to the adolescence-limited offenders, the life-course-persistent offenders have more disadvantaged socioeconomic status. Logistic regression suggests that the life-course-persistent offenders have more than three times the odds as the adolescence-limited offenders to report psychomotor agitation, delusions and anger. The adulthood-onset offenders have 2.2 times the odds as the adolescence-limited offenders in reporting sadness.

Conclusions and Implications: Our findings revealed the heterogeneous nature of incarceration histories among incarcerated mothers and identified subgroups that are most severely impacted by incarceration. This knowledge may contribute to customized mental health practices targeting incarcerated women who are mothers.