High rates of incarceration prevail in many U.S. communities. According to the most recent data compiled last month by the International Centre for Prison Studies, the U.S. has the second-highest incarceration rate in the world: about 698 prisoners per 100,000 residents. Numbering more than 2.2 million, the U.S. prison population is by far the largest in the world and is disproportionately comprised of young black and Hispanic men.
The imprisonment of so many citizens who could otherwise contribute to the U.S. workforce has exacted its toll not only on limited resources but also on social networks in communities that are affected by high rates of incarceration. Several studies have found that widespread imprisonment results in the upheaval of community structure as well as community values, including societal norms governing sexual behavior.
Though this topic is not studied relatively frequently, some studies, including one led by Dr. Andrea Knittel at the University of Michigan, have further delved into the destabilizing effects of incarceration on communities. In their study, recently published in November 2015 in the journal Social Science & Medicine, Knittel and her research team devised a computer model to study the effects of high incarceration rates on sexual partnerships in a community.
This computational model utilized values that approximate the patterns of sexual partnerships, as reported in national data, among 20- to 25-year-old heterosexual urban residents in the U.S.
Limiting the model to a community of 250 agents, half male and half female, the investigators sought to specifically test how varying rates of male incarceration would disrupt the sexual partnerships within the wider community, outside of sexual encounters that may occur inside criminal justice institutions. The algorithm used in the computer model incarcerated male agents for a number of weeks before releasing them back into the population.
In all of the simulations, individuals were assigned a measure of quality to indicate their desirability to other agents, and as a penalty for being incarcerated, male agents lost 10 percent of their quality for each week of imprisonment. Incarcerated male agents were also assigned new probabilities of relationship break-up at the time of incarceration and new probabilities of relationship formation while in prison. These probabilities were approximated based on data concerning partnership dissolution at the time of incarceration, which, according to one estimate, may affect as many as 40 percent of relationships.
Due to the increased number of break-ups and newly formed relationships, high rates of male incarceration, according to this study, led to an increased number of sexual partners for both male and female agents. Male agents acquired an additional nine to 17 partnerships whereas female agents experienced an additional five to 12 partnerships within a year’s time.
Moreover, increasing the prison sentence lengths for male agents further generated a net increase in the number of sexual partners for both male and female agents. Increasing the penalty for incarceration caused male partners to have fewer partners within a year, but a greater number of partners in the long-term. For female agents, the number of additional partners increased as rates of male incarceration rose.
Knittel and her research team suggest that female agents, upon the loss of their existing relationships with incarcerated male agents, tend to seek more partnerships in their attempts to find better, high-quality partners. While incarceration is one of several social factors that affects sexual decision-making, the investigators posit that reducing incarceration in a community may help reduce the number of sexual partners that men and women have, thus slowing the spread of sexually transmitted infections in a community.
The research team noted that their model did not explicitly include the transmission of HIV and other STDs, but the community-level increase in the number of partnerships, which is linked to high rates of incarceration, cannot be said to be an insignificant factor.
Another limitation of this model, as the researchers acknowledge, is that this model excludes individual and community-level changes in attitudes toward sexual behavior. Male agents, for instance, may be more likely to seek an increased number of partners following incarceration in their attempts to make up for experiences that they missed out on while they were incarcerated. Due to the exclusion of factors such as changing sexual norms, the researchers believe that their computational model probably underestimates the effects of incarceration.
To combat some of the destabilizing effects of incarceration on an affected community, some experts suggest policy interventions to help prisoners maintain community connections and provide job training and placement for inmates following their release. Yet, at current rates of incarceration in the U.S., others espouse a reform of the criminal justice system, which they say would be more humane and cost-effective in its efforts to maintain community networks and conserve the economic and social viability of their residents.
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