Wade Jacobsen

I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland. I am also affiliated with the Maryland Population Research Center, Maryland Longitudinal Data System Center, and the Department of Criminology at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law.

I study the impacts of traditional forms of institutional punishment on the wellbeing of children, adolescents, and emerging adults in the United States. The types of punishment I focus on are formal responses to actual or perceived deviant or illegal behaviors. They may be experienced directly (for example, a child's school suspension or police apprehension) or indirectly (such as the incarceration of a parent).

Such punishment experiences have two important characteristics. First, they involve a youth’s physical separation from their normal routines and interactions. For example, an adolescent who is suspended is removed from classroom activities, and child who experiences the incarceration of a parent is physically separated from that parent. Second, they are stigmatizing. For example, an emerging adult may be excluded from a job opportunity on the basis of a previous encounter with the police.

Separation and stigma have the potential to foster social exclusion, which is the diminishment of an individual’s social bond, or integration into society. Social exclusion involves reduced participation in conventional institutions, such as school or employment (what I call institutional exclusion), and weakened normative relationships such as friends and family (what I call interpersonal exclusion). Its consequences for young people may include such outcomes as poor academic achievement, behavior problems, and subsequent criminal justice involvement.

Given the disproportionate concentration of punishment among disadvantaged groups and youth of color (for example, see my research on the disproportionate distribution and outcomes of suspension in elementary school), any empirical evidence for the outcomes I have described implies that some current policies that are meant to address youth behavior may actually foster patterns of social inequality. 

I believe that by increasing knowledge of the impacts of punishment and mechanisms of inequality (how and why it occurs), research can inform policies and practices aimed at addressing child and youth behavior problems in ways that reduce inequality, foster wellbeing, and facilitate a normative transition to adulthood.