Is It Better to Sit on Our Handsor Just Dive In?

• Published date: 01 May 2016
• Author: Christopher Wildeman
• Date: 01 May 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12210

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION

INCARCERATION AND FAMILY

RELATIONSHIPS

Is It Better to Sit on Our Hands

or Just Dive In?

Cultivating Family-Friendly Criminal Justice Policy

in the Contemporary Era

Christopher Wildeman

Cornell University

We have reached a turning point. For the first time in many of our lives, there

is consensus across the political spectrum that something must be done to

reduce the incarceration rate. There is, of course, less consensus surrounding

why doing so is important. And the same is the case for how we might go about doing

so. But the fact remains that there is great enthusiasm for figuring out how exactly we

might go about reducing the incarceration rate. Whether these reductions come through

decreasing first-time incarcerations, diminishing length of stay, or reducing recidivism,

they are certain to affect those tied to inmates—or those who would be inmates in the

contemporary era but might not be under a revised set of criminal justice policies. And to

the degree that changes in criminal justice policy change not only the rate of incarceration

but also the character of the incarceration experience, such changes are also likely to affect

families.

The one excellent article (Mowen and Visher, 2016, this issue) and two thoughtful

policy essays (McKay, Comfort, Lindquist, and Bir, 2016, this issue; Wakefield, 2016, this

issue) I am charged with introducing grapple with these issues by focusing mostly,although

not solely, on how the conditions of confinement and release affect former inmates and

their families. They thus fall in line with the large literature on the family consequences of

incarceration (Andersen and Wildeman, 2014; Braman, 2004; Comfort, 2008; Foster and

Hagan, 2007, 2015; Lee, McCormick,Hicken, and Wildeman, 2015; Nurse, 2002; Roettger

and Boardman, 2011; Turney and Wildeman, 2013, 2015; Wakefield and Wildeman, 2011,

Direct correspondence to Christopher Wildeman, Department of Policy Analysis and Management, Cornell

University, 137 MVR Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853 (e-mail: christopher.wildeman@cornell.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12210 C2016 American Society of Criminology 497

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 15 rIssue 2