Parental Incarceration and the Mental Health of Youth in the Justice System: The Moderating Role of Neighborhood Disorder

Neighborhood-level characteristics may inform youths' experience of parental incarceration; however, their precise role has not yet been established. Some empirical evidence indicates that neighborhood disorder compounds the psychological distress of parental incarceration because youth living in disorderly neighborhoods are more likely to be affected by other related stressors. Other theorists suggest that neighborhood disorder mitigates the psychological distress of parental incarceration because the residents of disordered neighborhoods may be more equipped to address the collateral challenges associated with incarceration. Drawing upon secondary data from 1,186 male youth who had been arrested for the first time, the present study empirically tested these competing hypotheses by examining the moderating role of neighborhood disorder in the predictive relationship between parental incarceration and symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and major depressive disorder (MDD). The results indicate that both youth of color and youth living in high levels of neighborhood disorder experience no incremental change in GAD and MDD scores when a parent is incarcerated. However, parental incarceration is associated with significantly higher GAD and MDD scores among White youth in nondisordered neighborhoods. The results speak to the contextual mechanisms that inform youths' experience of parental incarceration.