The Correlation between Single-parent Homes and Incarceration in the United States of America

Introduction: Although the US prison population had remained stable throughout the early and mid-1900s, from 1978 to 2010, it suddenly exploded, growing over 500%. Approximately 10 years before this incarceration epidemic, an epidemic of US single-parent homes commenced, though this statistic had likewise remained stable throughout the first half of the 1900s. We aimed to determine if there was a significant correlation between the rise in US single-parent homes and incarceration rates. Methods: We utilized the US Bureau of Prisons data and US Census Bureau data to calculate the annual rates of incarceration and single-parent families. Multiple regressions were conducted on data subsets, and locally estimated scatterplot smoothing plots of incarceration were generated to assess differences across demographics. Results: From 1978 to 2016, there was an increase in the number of people incarcerated each year per 100,000 US citizens – 7.9 additional American Whites (AWs), 99.8 American Blacks (ABs), 38.3 males, and 5.0 females. Furthermore, for every additional single-parent family per 100,000 US citizens, an additional 0.2 AW individuals, 0.5 ABs, and 0.8 males were incarcerated. Conclusion: In recent decades, the rise in the percentage of single-parent homes in the US was significantly correlated with the rise in US incarcerations.