The Impact of Gender, Offense Type, and Familial Role on the Decision to Incarcerate

This study attempts to further the understanding of how familial roles affect male and females?? sentences. In accordance with familial paternalism theory, the effects of familial roles presenting different levels of social costs and control were examined for drug and property offenders. The findings show that living with a child or paying child support reduced defendants?? odds of incarceration. Once familial role variables were included in the model, gender was not a significant predictor of odds of incarceration. When split models for gender and offense type were examined, females and property offenders had a reduced likelihood of being incarcerated if they were caretakers to children. Interaction effects, however, found that the impacts did not differ significantly for males and females or for property and drug offenders.