| Sumario: | Part of a special issue on incarceration and punishment in the U.S. Incarceration is so pervasive among some social groups in the U.S. as to be a defining feature of their collective experience. This unprecedented rate of incarceration has two important effects on economic inequality. First, it generates invisible inequality: economic measures of well-being, like the rate of employment, do not count people who are institutionalized, and as a result they can be significantly overstated for social groups with a high incarceration rate. Second, even after prisoners are released, their employment opportunities and wages are curtailed as a result of the stigma of a criminal conviction, the reduced human capital from time out of the labor force, and the weakened social connections to legitimate employment opportunities. In this manner, the expansion of the U.S. penal system has helped to solidify the lines of social disadvantage.
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