Sarah Shannon | The University of Georgia (original) (raw)

Papers by Sarah Shannon

Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, Sep 1, 2010

Parental culpability for juvenile delinquency has permeated social welfare thought and practice t... more Parental culpability for juvenile delinquency has permeated social welfare thought and practice throughout U.S. history. This article presents a case study of one Midwestern municipality's efforts to create a training school for parents as a remedy for delinquency in the 1940s. The case study illustrates how city leaders attempted to put theory about delinquency causation into practice by forging a collaborative intervention strategy among various community partners including public schools, social welfare agencies, and law enforcement. In light of the case study, this article examines historical and contemporary efforts to punish parents of juvenile delinquents.

RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, 2022

Probation is the most commonly imposed correctional sanction, is often accompanied by supplementa... more Probation is the most commonly imposed correctional sanction, is often accompanied by supplementary costs, and can be operated by the state or private companies. Private probation is a unique sanction used in lower courts, most often for misdemeanor offenses, and is managed by third-party actors. We focus on documenting the process and unique costs of private probation, including the rituals of compliance and proportionality of punishment. We use data from interviews with individuals on private probation and local criminal justice officials as well as evidence from court ethnographies in Georgia and Missouri. For individuals on private probation, payment of monetary sanctions is a crucial way of demonstrating compliance. Yet the financial burden of added costs for supervision and monitoring creates substantial challenges.

RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, 2022

Br it ta n y fr iedm a n , a lex es H a r r is, BetH m. HueBner , k a r in d. m a rtin , Beck y P... more Br it ta n y fr iedm a n , a lex es H a r r is, BetH m. HueBner , k a r in d. m a rtin , Beck y Pet tit, sa r a H k.s. sH a n non , a nd Brya n l. sy k es Monetary sanctions are an integral and increasingly debated feature of the American criminal legal system. Emerging research, including that featured in this volume, offers important insight into the law governing monetary sanctions, how they are levied, and how their imposition affects inequality. Monetary sanctions are assessed for a wide range of contacts with the criminal legal system ranging from felony convictions to alleged traffic violations with important variability in law and practice across states. These differences allow for the identification of features of law, policy, and practice that differentially shape access to justice and equality before the law. Common practices undermine individuals' rights and fuel inequality in the effects of unpaid monetary sanctions. These observations lead us to offer a number of specific recommendations to improve the administration of justice, mitigate some of the most harmful effects of monetary sanctions, and advance future research.

Contexts, 2011

Armed with methodological skills and a healthy sociological imagination, a quarter of advanced-de... more Armed with methodological skills and a healthy sociological imagination, a quarter of advanced-degree holding sociologists find work outside of the ivory tower. Sociology, as a whole, can benefit from increasing support and dialog across the academic/applied divide.

RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, 2022

Researchers have established that monetary sanctions are a ubiquitous and growing aspect of court... more Researchers have established that monetary sanctions are a ubiquitous and growing aspect of court systems across the United States (Harris 2016; Martin et al. 2018; Shannon, Huebner Justice by Geography: The Role of Monetary Sanctions Across Communities ga Briel a kirk , k r istina j. tHomPson, BetH m. HueBner , cHr istoPHer uggen , a nd sa r a H k.s. sH a n non Monetary sanctions are a ubiquitous part of court systems. Previous studies have focused largely on these sanctions at the state level or solely on large urban jurisdictions. However, court systems differ considerably across communities of varying population size, composition, and density. This article examines how differences in court structure and organizational dynamics in communities across the rural-urban continuum lead to differences in how court actors consider the role of monetary sanctions. Using interviews with court actors and ethnographic observations in communities across four states, we find that the practical and symbolic nature of monetary sanctions varied by the acquaintanceship density of the court and community. These interpersonal dynamics influenced courtroom considerations, monetary sanctions' relationship to local finances, and actors' positioning toward state-level policy. These findings emphasize the importance of court and community context and structure in assessing the law-inaction both when conducting research and designing reform.

It is hard to believe this is the last "Notes from the Chair" I will be writing to you. My tenure... more It is hard to believe this is the last "Notes from the Chair" I will be writing to you. My tenure as CJDD Chair is coming to an end. Please know it has been my honor to serve our division these past years. At the upcoming annual meeting on Sunday, the leadership reigns will pass to Kelley Sittner (incoming Chair, 2019-2021) and Sarah Jane Brubaker (incoming Associate Chair, 2019-2021). If you missed it, you can see a profile for each of them in the Spring edition of our newsletter. I know the division will be in good hands with this new leadership team. I hope you will join me in welcoming them. Speaking of the annual meeting, SSSP has posted the preliminary schedule (please click on the hyperlink for access). Make sure to check out all the sessions our division is sponsoring. We hope to see you at many of them!

Parental culpability for juvenile delinquency has permeated social welfare thought and practice t... more Parental culpability for juvenile delinquency has permeated social welfare thought and practice throughout U.S. history. This article presents a case study of one Midwestern municipality's efforts to create a training school for parents as a remedy for delinquency in the 1940s. The case study illustrates how city leaders attempted to put theory about delinquency causation into practice by forging a collaborative intervention strategy among various community partners including public schools, social welfare agencies, and law enforcement. In light of the case study, this article examines historical and contemporary efforts to punish parents of juvenile delinquents.

The Sentencing Project is a national non-profit organization engaged in research and advocacy on ... more The Sentencing Project is a national non-profit organization engaged in research and advocacy on criminal justice issues. The work of The Sentencing Project is supported by many individual donors and contributions from the following:

medRxiv, 2020

The vast majority of colleges and universities across the United States are bringing students bac... more The vast majority of colleges and universities across the United States are bringing students back for in-person instruction in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the absence of an effective vaccine or other anti-viral therapeutic treatment. Using data from the New York Times and the American Community Survey, we assess the effect of this return to campus on viral case growth in counties with a significant college student population (what we term college counties) relative to non-college counties. We find a significant surge of 9% in new cases in a 21-day time frame in college counties, a finding consistent across U.S. Census divisions. These results suggest the need for institutions of higher education and the communities where these institutions reside work together quickly and effectively to mitigate viral transmission and to prevent overwhelming local healthcare infrastructure in college counties.

Author(s): Shannon, Sarah; Huebner, Beth M.; Harris, Alexes; Martin, Karin; Patillo, Mary; Pettit... more Author(s): Shannon, Sarah; Huebner, Beth M.; Harris, Alexes; Martin, Karin; Patillo, Mary; Pettit, Becky; Sykes, Bryan; Uggen, Christopher | Abstract: Monetary sanctions have long been a part of the U.S. criminal justice system but have received increasing attention from the public as well as legal scholars and social science research in recent years. This essay describes initial findings from the Multi-State Study of Monetary Sanctions, a multi-method study designed to build on the prior research on legal financial obligations (LFOs) by examining the multi-tiered systems of monetary sanctions operating within eight states representing key regions of the United States (California, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Texas and Washington). Our research explores the constantly changing legal environment and documents how the law is practiced on the ground. We expand on prior research by engaging a large and diverse group of people who owe legal debt and criminaljustice s...

Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, 2017

The U.S. social safety net for the very poor has been shrinking for several decades. Two factors ... more The U.S. social safety net for the very poor has been shrinking for several decades. Two factors stand out as potential drivers of this transformation: a neoliberal turn in poverty governance that favors incarceration and other punitive policies and “religious neoliberalism,” which melds neoliberal, anti-statist political ideology with conservative Christian ideals of compassionate assistance administered not by government but through local congregations. Yet these two streams have not been studied simultaneously in relation to welfare retrenchment. Analysis of the demise of state General Assistance (GA) programs using Cox regression models and a unique longitudinal data set shows that higher incarceration rates and higher church density both contribute to the decline of public assistance over time. Findings support the theoretical perspective of religious neoliberalism.

The Professional Geographer, 2017

Although general patterns of food insecurity in the U.S. are known, few studies have attempted to... more Although general patterns of food insecurity in the U.S. are known, few studies have attempted to estimate small area food security or account for ongoing socioeconomic changes. Here we address these issues by producing small area estimates of food insecurity in the Atlanta metropolitan area using two methodologies: fixed effects modeling and demographic metabolism. In both cases, we use county level data from the Current Population Survey to determine the association between food insecurity and demographic predictors. These associations are then applied to tract level data from the 2009-2013 American Community Survey and projected data for 2020 to create small area estimates of food insecurity. We find broad consensus between our two methods. For both time periods, food insecurity is highest in southern sections of the city of Atlanta and its neighboring suburbs. Projections to 2020, however, show food insecurity rates are projected to increase in outer ring suburbs east and west of the city while decreasing in the urban core. These results highlight the need to further adapt anti-hunger efforts for often sprawling suburban communities, where poverty rates are increasing but spatial mismatch combined with poor transit access may hinder access to food assistance.

Both the welfare state and the criminal justice system have undergone tremendous changes in the p... more Both the welfare state and the criminal justice system have undergone tremendous changes in the past 50 years. While the "right hand" carceral state has swelled through increased populations and spending, the "left hand" welfare state has simultaneously shifted caseloads and spending toward programs that support and reward the working poor and away from cash programs for those in deep poverty. This dissertation examines the theoretical and empirical connections between the changes in these two "hands" of the state using the particular case of General Assistance (GA) welfare programs from 1960 to 2010. In three sets of analysis, this study examines what factors account for major changes in GA policy since the late 1950s, as well as how GA welfare provision has affected state incarceration rates and crime rates at the state and county level over time and space. Results from these analyses highlight two important points: 1) the outlook for low-income men (and others not eligible for federal welfare programs) has become more dire over the last several decades as states have ended income supports for this population in conjunction with higher rates of incarceration; and 2) the loss of such income supports impacts public safety since greater provision of GA is associated with reductions in several types of crime. xi

Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services, 2007

Current research offers conflicting findings regarding how, or if, fatherhood influences youth of... more Current research offers conflicting findings regarding how, or if, fatherhood influences youth offenders’ criminal trajectories. Through repeated qualitative interviews with seven incarcerated teen fathers, this study provides insight into these young fathers’ understandings of their responsibilities toward their children and prospects for future criminal activity. Analysis reveals that these young fathers take their parental roles very seriously and identify their children as the principal motivator for desistance from crime. They also articulate substantial obstacles to achieving their paternal ideals, including financial pressure, strained relationships with their children's mothers, and lack of male role models. Implications for social work practice are provided.

Children and Youth Services Review, 2008

Despite a considerable overlap between child welfare and juvenile justice populations, the child ... more Despite a considerable overlap between child welfare and juvenile justice populations, the child welfare literature contains sparse information about transition and reentry programs for incarcerated youth. Using mixed methods, this paper explores the benefits and limitations of a six-week transitional living program for incarcerated youth offenders. Logistic regression analysis found that only age at arrest and number of prior offenses predicted the odds of recidivism at one-year post-release. Youth who participated in the transitional living program and dual status youth (those involved in both child welfare and juvenile justice systems) were slightly more likely to recidivate, but these differences were not statistically significant. Qualitative interviews with youth and staff revealed that both groups viewed the transitional living program as having many benefits, particularly independent living skills training. However, follow-up with youth in the community lacked sufficient intensity to handle the types of challenges that emerged. Implications for future research and transition programming with vulnerable youth are discussed.

RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, 2022

Monetary Sanctions and Symbiotic Harms da niel j. BocHes, Br it ta n y t. m a rtin , a ndr e a gi... more Monetary Sanctions and Symbiotic Harms da niel j. BocHes, Br it ta n y t. m a rtin , a ndr e a giuffr e , a m a ir ini sa ncHez, auBr i a n ne l. su tHer l a nd, a nd sa r a H k.s. sH a n non People convicted of crime are often treated as atomistic individuals by the criminal justice system, ignoring the fact that they are largely embedded in social networks. Research shows that family members are often negatively impacted by their relatives' punishment despite not breaking any laws themselves. These detrimental effects of punishment on family are known as symbiotic harms. Most research on symbiotic harms, however, has focused on incarceration. We extend this research by describing how monetary sanctions harm the families of adults with legal debt. Our data come from semi-structured interviews with 140 people with legal debt and ninety-six court actors in Georgia and Missouri. We find evidence that family members are often coerced into paying their relatives' fines and fees and that monetary sanctions increase the financial strain, emotional distress, and interpersonal conflict that relatives experience.

Social Service Review, 2014

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact

Social Problems, 2014

From the Works Progress Administration of the New Deal to the Job Corps of the Great Society era,... more From the Works Progress Administration of the New Deal to the Job Corps of the Great Society era, employment programs have been advanced to fight poverty and social disorder. In today's context of stubborn unemployment and neoliberal policy change, supported work programs are once more on the policy agenda. This article asks whether work reduces crime and drug use among heavy substance users. And, if so, whether it is the income from the job that makes a difference, or something else. Using the nation's largest randomized job experiment, we first estimate the treatment effects of a basic work opportunity and then partition these effects into their economic and extra-economic components, using a logit decomposition technique generalized to event history analysis. We then interview young adults leaving drug treatment to learn whether and how they combine work with active substance use, elaborating the experiment's implications. Although supported employment fails to reduce cocaine or heroin use, we find clear experimental evidence that a basic work opportunity reduces predatory economic crime, consistent with classic criminological theory and contemporary models of harm reduction. The rate of robbery and burglary arrests fell by approximately 46 percent for the work treatment group relative to the control group, with income accounting for a significant share of the effect.

Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, Sep 1, 2010

Parental culpability for juvenile delinquency has permeated social welfare thought and practice t... more Parental culpability for juvenile delinquency has permeated social welfare thought and practice throughout U.S. history. This article presents a case study of one Midwestern municipality's efforts to create a training school for parents as a remedy for delinquency in the 1940s. The case study illustrates how city leaders attempted to put theory about delinquency causation into practice by forging a collaborative intervention strategy among various community partners including public schools, social welfare agencies, and law enforcement. In light of the case study, this article examines historical and contemporary efforts to punish parents of juvenile delinquents.

RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, 2022

Probation is the most commonly imposed correctional sanction, is often accompanied by supplementa... more Probation is the most commonly imposed correctional sanction, is often accompanied by supplementary costs, and can be operated by the state or private companies. Private probation is a unique sanction used in lower courts, most often for misdemeanor offenses, and is managed by third-party actors. We focus on documenting the process and unique costs of private probation, including the rituals of compliance and proportionality of punishment. We use data from interviews with individuals on private probation and local criminal justice officials as well as evidence from court ethnographies in Georgia and Missouri. For individuals on private probation, payment of monetary sanctions is a crucial way of demonstrating compliance. Yet the financial burden of added costs for supervision and monitoring creates substantial challenges.

RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, 2022

Br it ta n y fr iedm a n , a lex es H a r r is, BetH m. HueBner , k a r in d. m a rtin , Beck y P... more Br it ta n y fr iedm a n , a lex es H a r r is, BetH m. HueBner , k a r in d. m a rtin , Beck y Pet tit, sa r a H k.s. sH a n non , a nd Brya n l. sy k es Monetary sanctions are an integral and increasingly debated feature of the American criminal legal system. Emerging research, including that featured in this volume, offers important insight into the law governing monetary sanctions, how they are levied, and how their imposition affects inequality. Monetary sanctions are assessed for a wide range of contacts with the criminal legal system ranging from felony convictions to alleged traffic violations with important variability in law and practice across states. These differences allow for the identification of features of law, policy, and practice that differentially shape access to justice and equality before the law. Common practices undermine individuals' rights and fuel inequality in the effects of unpaid monetary sanctions. These observations lead us to offer a number of specific recommendations to improve the administration of justice, mitigate some of the most harmful effects of monetary sanctions, and advance future research.

Contexts, 2011

Armed with methodological skills and a healthy sociological imagination, a quarter of advanced-de... more Armed with methodological skills and a healthy sociological imagination, a quarter of advanced-degree holding sociologists find work outside of the ivory tower. Sociology, as a whole, can benefit from increasing support and dialog across the academic/applied divide.

RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, 2022

Researchers have established that monetary sanctions are a ubiquitous and growing aspect of court... more Researchers have established that monetary sanctions are a ubiquitous and growing aspect of court systems across the United States (Harris 2016; Martin et al. 2018; Shannon, Huebner Justice by Geography: The Role of Monetary Sanctions Across Communities ga Briel a kirk , k r istina j. tHomPson, BetH m. HueBner , cHr istoPHer uggen , a nd sa r a H k.s. sH a n non Monetary sanctions are a ubiquitous part of court systems. Previous studies have focused largely on these sanctions at the state level or solely on large urban jurisdictions. However, court systems differ considerably across communities of varying population size, composition, and density. This article examines how differences in court structure and organizational dynamics in communities across the rural-urban continuum lead to differences in how court actors consider the role of monetary sanctions. Using interviews with court actors and ethnographic observations in communities across four states, we find that the practical and symbolic nature of monetary sanctions varied by the acquaintanceship density of the court and community. These interpersonal dynamics influenced courtroom considerations, monetary sanctions' relationship to local finances, and actors' positioning toward state-level policy. These findings emphasize the importance of court and community context and structure in assessing the law-inaction both when conducting research and designing reform.

It is hard to believe this is the last "Notes from the Chair" I will be writing to you. My tenure... more It is hard to believe this is the last "Notes from the Chair" I will be writing to you. My tenure as CJDD Chair is coming to an end. Please know it has been my honor to serve our division these past years. At the upcoming annual meeting on Sunday, the leadership reigns will pass to Kelley Sittner (incoming Chair, 2019-2021) and Sarah Jane Brubaker (incoming Associate Chair, 2019-2021). If you missed it, you can see a profile for each of them in the Spring edition of our newsletter. I know the division will be in good hands with this new leadership team. I hope you will join me in welcoming them. Speaking of the annual meeting, SSSP has posted the preliminary schedule (please click on the hyperlink for access). Make sure to check out all the sessions our division is sponsoring. We hope to see you at many of them!

Parental culpability for juvenile delinquency has permeated social welfare thought and practice t... more Parental culpability for juvenile delinquency has permeated social welfare thought and practice throughout U.S. history. This article presents a case study of one Midwestern municipality's efforts to create a training school for parents as a remedy for delinquency in the 1940s. The case study illustrates how city leaders attempted to put theory about delinquency causation into practice by forging a collaborative intervention strategy among various community partners including public schools, social welfare agencies, and law enforcement. In light of the case study, this article examines historical and contemporary efforts to punish parents of juvenile delinquents.

The Sentencing Project is a national non-profit organization engaged in research and advocacy on ... more The Sentencing Project is a national non-profit organization engaged in research and advocacy on criminal justice issues. The work of The Sentencing Project is supported by many individual donors and contributions from the following:

medRxiv, 2020

The vast majority of colleges and universities across the United States are bringing students bac... more The vast majority of colleges and universities across the United States are bringing students back for in-person instruction in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the absence of an effective vaccine or other anti-viral therapeutic treatment. Using data from the New York Times and the American Community Survey, we assess the effect of this return to campus on viral case growth in counties with a significant college student population (what we term college counties) relative to non-college counties. We find a significant surge of 9% in new cases in a 21-day time frame in college counties, a finding consistent across U.S. Census divisions. These results suggest the need for institutions of higher education and the communities where these institutions reside work together quickly and effectively to mitigate viral transmission and to prevent overwhelming local healthcare infrastructure in college counties.

Author(s): Shannon, Sarah; Huebner, Beth M.; Harris, Alexes; Martin, Karin; Patillo, Mary; Pettit... more Author(s): Shannon, Sarah; Huebner, Beth M.; Harris, Alexes; Martin, Karin; Patillo, Mary; Pettit, Becky; Sykes, Bryan; Uggen, Christopher | Abstract: Monetary sanctions have long been a part of the U.S. criminal justice system but have received increasing attention from the public as well as legal scholars and social science research in recent years. This essay describes initial findings from the Multi-State Study of Monetary Sanctions, a multi-method study designed to build on the prior research on legal financial obligations (LFOs) by examining the multi-tiered systems of monetary sanctions operating within eight states representing key regions of the United States (California, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Texas and Washington). Our research explores the constantly changing legal environment and documents how the law is practiced on the ground. We expand on prior research by engaging a large and diverse group of people who owe legal debt and criminaljustice s...

Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, 2017

The U.S. social safety net for the very poor has been shrinking for several decades. Two factors ... more The U.S. social safety net for the very poor has been shrinking for several decades. Two factors stand out as potential drivers of this transformation: a neoliberal turn in poverty governance that favors incarceration and other punitive policies and “religious neoliberalism,” which melds neoliberal, anti-statist political ideology with conservative Christian ideals of compassionate assistance administered not by government but through local congregations. Yet these two streams have not been studied simultaneously in relation to welfare retrenchment. Analysis of the demise of state General Assistance (GA) programs using Cox regression models and a unique longitudinal data set shows that higher incarceration rates and higher church density both contribute to the decline of public assistance over time. Findings support the theoretical perspective of religious neoliberalism.

The Professional Geographer, 2017

Although general patterns of food insecurity in the U.S. are known, few studies have attempted to... more Although general patterns of food insecurity in the U.S. are known, few studies have attempted to estimate small area food security or account for ongoing socioeconomic changes. Here we address these issues by producing small area estimates of food insecurity in the Atlanta metropolitan area using two methodologies: fixed effects modeling and demographic metabolism. In both cases, we use county level data from the Current Population Survey to determine the association between food insecurity and demographic predictors. These associations are then applied to tract level data from the 2009-2013 American Community Survey and projected data for 2020 to create small area estimates of food insecurity. We find broad consensus between our two methods. For both time periods, food insecurity is highest in southern sections of the city of Atlanta and its neighboring suburbs. Projections to 2020, however, show food insecurity rates are projected to increase in outer ring suburbs east and west of the city while decreasing in the urban core. These results highlight the need to further adapt anti-hunger efforts for often sprawling suburban communities, where poverty rates are increasing but spatial mismatch combined with poor transit access may hinder access to food assistance.

Both the welfare state and the criminal justice system have undergone tremendous changes in the p... more Both the welfare state and the criminal justice system have undergone tremendous changes in the past 50 years. While the "right hand" carceral state has swelled through increased populations and spending, the "left hand" welfare state has simultaneously shifted caseloads and spending toward programs that support and reward the working poor and away from cash programs for those in deep poverty. This dissertation examines the theoretical and empirical connections between the changes in these two "hands" of the state using the particular case of General Assistance (GA) welfare programs from 1960 to 2010. In three sets of analysis, this study examines what factors account for major changes in GA policy since the late 1950s, as well as how GA welfare provision has affected state incarceration rates and crime rates at the state and county level over time and space. Results from these analyses highlight two important points: 1) the outlook for low-income men (and others not eligible for federal welfare programs) has become more dire over the last several decades as states have ended income supports for this population in conjunction with higher rates of incarceration; and 2) the loss of such income supports impacts public safety since greater provision of GA is associated with reductions in several types of crime. xi

Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services, 2007

Current research offers conflicting findings regarding how, or if, fatherhood influences youth of... more Current research offers conflicting findings regarding how, or if, fatherhood influences youth offenders’ criminal trajectories. Through repeated qualitative interviews with seven incarcerated teen fathers, this study provides insight into these young fathers’ understandings of their responsibilities toward their children and prospects for future criminal activity. Analysis reveals that these young fathers take their parental roles very seriously and identify their children as the principal motivator for desistance from crime. They also articulate substantial obstacles to achieving their paternal ideals, including financial pressure, strained relationships with their children's mothers, and lack of male role models. Implications for social work practice are provided.

Children and Youth Services Review, 2008

Despite a considerable overlap between child welfare and juvenile justice populations, the child ... more Despite a considerable overlap between child welfare and juvenile justice populations, the child welfare literature contains sparse information about transition and reentry programs for incarcerated youth. Using mixed methods, this paper explores the benefits and limitations of a six-week transitional living program for incarcerated youth offenders. Logistic regression analysis found that only age at arrest and number of prior offenses predicted the odds of recidivism at one-year post-release. Youth who participated in the transitional living program and dual status youth (those involved in both child welfare and juvenile justice systems) were slightly more likely to recidivate, but these differences were not statistically significant. Qualitative interviews with youth and staff revealed that both groups viewed the transitional living program as having many benefits, particularly independent living skills training. However, follow-up with youth in the community lacked sufficient intensity to handle the types of challenges that emerged. Implications for future research and transition programming with vulnerable youth are discussed.

RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, 2022

Monetary Sanctions and Symbiotic Harms da niel j. BocHes, Br it ta n y t. m a rtin , a ndr e a gi... more Monetary Sanctions and Symbiotic Harms da niel j. BocHes, Br it ta n y t. m a rtin , a ndr e a giuffr e , a m a ir ini sa ncHez, auBr i a n ne l. su tHer l a nd, a nd sa r a H k.s. sH a n non People convicted of crime are often treated as atomistic individuals by the criminal justice system, ignoring the fact that they are largely embedded in social networks. Research shows that family members are often negatively impacted by their relatives' punishment despite not breaking any laws themselves. These detrimental effects of punishment on family are known as symbiotic harms. Most research on symbiotic harms, however, has focused on incarceration. We extend this research by describing how monetary sanctions harm the families of adults with legal debt. Our data come from semi-structured interviews with 140 people with legal debt and ninety-six court actors in Georgia and Missouri. We find evidence that family members are often coerced into paying their relatives' fines and fees and that monetary sanctions increase the financial strain, emotional distress, and interpersonal conflict that relatives experience.

Social Service Review, 2014

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact

Social Problems, 2014

From the Works Progress Administration of the New Deal to the Job Corps of the Great Society era,... more From the Works Progress Administration of the New Deal to the Job Corps of the Great Society era, employment programs have been advanced to fight poverty and social disorder. In today's context of stubborn unemployment and neoliberal policy change, supported work programs are once more on the policy agenda. This article asks whether work reduces crime and drug use among heavy substance users. And, if so, whether it is the income from the job that makes a difference, or something else. Using the nation's largest randomized job experiment, we first estimate the treatment effects of a basic work opportunity and then partition these effects into their economic and extra-economic components, using a logit decomposition technique generalized to event history analysis. We then interview young adults leaving drug treatment to learn whether and how they combine work with active substance use, elaborating the experiment's implications. Although supported employment fails to reduce cocaine or heroin use, we find clear experimental evidence that a basic work opportunity reduces predatory economic crime, consistent with classic criminological theory and contemporary models of harm reduction. The rate of robbery and burglary arrests fell by approximately 46 percent for the work treatment group relative to the control group, with income accounting for a significant share of the effect.