Research

As research professor I mainly study crime and the criminal legal system in Denmark

I use population administrative data from Denmark, which is an unprecedented data source, to undertake both descriptive and causal studies. Most of these fall within the field of Criminology, with main emphasis on questions related to family and intergenerational persistence in crime and contact with the criminal legal system, and the causes and consequences of criminal behavior and of (types of) punishment. I have also worked for long on ethnic dispararities in crime and punishment. My research expands beyond Criminology, however, and also features topics in broader Sociology. Please see my list of scientific publications below,

Acces my Google Scholar Profile here

As head of research in marginalized groups at the ROCKWOOL Foundation, I seek to promote stellar research on health behavior, crime, social vulnerability, and social policy

As head of the team, I strive to create and maintain the best possible structures for the team members to excel in their respective research areas. The team consists of economists, sociologists, data scientists, and an epidemiologist -- a vibrant bunch that is both fun to work with, has super high academic standards, and all value applied research that is relevant to the social and financial sustainability of the Danish welfare society.
Yes, I am that lucky and privileged!

My scientific publications

By year of acceptance
(For a list of academic presentations, please see my cv)

2026

Lokdam, Nicoline T., Marianne Riksheim Stavseth, Louis Favril, Morgan Scarth, Torill Tverborgvik, Lars H. Andersen, and Anne Bukten. Mental health disorders and risk of solitary confinement among incarcerated individuals: a nationwide longitudinal cohort study from Norway. Accepted for publication in BMJ Mental Health.

ABSTRACT

Background: Solitary confinement is extensively used in prisons, but its associations with mental health disorders remain unclear.
Objective: To investigate the risk of solitary confinement among people with pre-existing mental health disorders.
Methods: We included 35 210 individuals with 51 502 incarcerations in Norway from 2015 to 2022 in the Norwegian Prison Release study (nPRIS), linking national prison, health, mortality and demographic registries. Mental health disorders diagnosed within five years before incarceration were identified. The primary outcome was solitary confinement and four subtypes: court decided, disciplinary, self-requested and security cell. We estimated adjusted odds ratios and incidence rate ratios using logistic and negative binomial regression.
Findings: People placed in solitary confinement had a 25.1% higher prevalence of mental health disorders (x%) than those without solitary confinement (x%). Mental health disorders were associated with higher odds of any solitary confinement (adjusted OR (aOR) 1.77, 95% CI 1.68-1.85) and security cell (aOR 4.28, 3.57-5.13), and more days of self-requested (adjusted incidence rate ratio (aIRR) 2.46, 95% CI 1.91-3.18) and disciplinary (aIRR 3.84, 3.41-4.33) solitary confinement. Substance use disorders, severe mental illness and multimorbidity were associated with more days in solitary confinement, while mental health disorders were inversely associated with court-decided solitary confinement (aOR 0.52, 95% CI 0.47-0.57; aIRR 0.48, 95% CI 0.41-0.57).
Conclusion: People with mental health disorders disproportionately experience solitary confinement in prison, risking further deterioration of health.
Clinical implications: Health authorities and correctional services should reduce solitary confinement and develop alternative, health-protective segregation strategies for people with mental health disorders.

Light, Michael T., Lars H. Andersen, and Noa Hendel. Deportation’s Fallout: Evidence from Denmark. Accepted for publication in American Journal of Sociology.

ABSTRACT

Understanding the collateral consequences of deportation for families has become a paramount sociological concern. However, previous research has been hampered by sample attrition, selection, and the inability to separate deportation from criminal justice contact. Merging individual-level data on all deportations from 2000-2021 with full population registry data in Denmark, we address each of these issues. We find that deportation induces substantial collateral mobility – 13% of spouses of deportees left Denmark within 18 months after a deportation order. For spouses that stay, dynamic difference-in-differences models show that employment declines but then recovers within a year. Earnings also decline but recover less. Total income drops considerably and never recovers. Supplemental analyses suggest these economic consequences are not due to attrition bias from migration. Even with the removal of the most disadvantaged immigrants, our results suggest deportation may become an increasingly important driver of income inequality between immigrants and citizens.

2025

Andersen, Lars H., Camilla Hvidtfeldt, Thomas Woergaard, Marc T. Bærentzen, and Lars N. Mikkelsen. Measuring the Trend in Police Tasks Concerning People with Mental Health Challenges in Denmark, 2008-2022. Scientific Reports 15: 44949. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-29238-1

ABSTRACTThe handling of people with acute mental health challenges has become a defining police task over the recent decades but data challenges limit the investigation of the nature of this trend. To get as close to police-citizen interactions as possible with quantitative data, we automate the information kept in more than 3 million descriptions of encounters between police and citizens of Denmark during 2008–2022, obtained from the administrative system at the Danish National Police. The resulting data allows us to estimate trends in these encounters and split them by whether the involved citizen was likely in acute need of mental health assistance. We validate the data from our automation against estimates obtained from detailed analyses of more than 19,200 incident descriptions covering 2009–2016. Results confirm a strong upward trend in police tasks related to the handling of people recorded as having acute mental health challenges, far exceeding other relevant trends in the data; an upward trend across all case types.

Singh, Parvati, Marquianna Griffin, Camilla Hvidtfeldt, and Lars H. Andersen. Macroeconomic antecedents of involuntary psychiatric commitments in Denmark. Social Science & Medicine 377: 118133. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118133

ABSTRACTAims: Economic downturns may increase involuntary psychiatric commitments in a population through several mechanisms. This study examines the population-level association between economic downturns and involuntary psychiatric commitments in Denmark, and whether this relation differs across Danes and non-western immigrants. Methods: We examined the relation between quarterly aggregated counts of unemployed persons (exposure) and involuntary psychiatric commitments (outcomes) in the (1) overall population, (2) among Danes (excluding non-western immigrants), and (3) among non-western immigrants in Denmark, over 72 quarters, from 2001 to 2018, using Danish register data. We specified our exposure as the quarterly counts of unemployed persons in Denmark (0, 1 quarterly lags). We used time-series analyses to control for autocorrelation, change in underlying population and quarterly volume of voluntary (i.e. non-coercive) psychiatric inpatient admissions. Results: Results from time-series analyses indicate 15 additional involuntary psychiatric commitments in the overall Danish population, one quarter after increase in 50,000 additional unemployed persons (p-value < 0.05). We also observe 7 additional involuntary commitments among non-western immigrants at exposure lag 1 (p-value < 0.05). Our discovered coefficients correspond with a 2.3% increase in involuntary commitments in the overall population and a 9% increase among non-western immigrants one quarter following a 1 standard deviation increase in unemployed persons in Denmark. Conclusions: Our findings show an increase in involuntary psychiatric commitments following macroeconomic downturns in Denmark

2024

Bruckner, Tim A., Parvati Singh, Camilla Hvidtfeldt, and Lars H. Andersen (2025). Involuntary Psychiatric Commitments Among Non-Western Immigrants During the Muhammad Cartoon Controversy in Denmark. Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health 27(2): 234-241. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-024-01651-0.

ABSTRACTPersons deemed a danger to themselves, others, or gravely disabled may receive involuntary psychiatric commitment if family, other residents, law enforcement, or clinicians initiate this process. On September 30, 2005, a Danish newspaper published cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. This publication led to the worst foreign policy crisis in Denmark since World War II. Whereas protests within Denmark against the cartoon remained peaceful, this cartoon controversy—including the attacks on four Danish embassies outside of Denmark—may have reduced societal tolerance for threatening or deviant behavior among non-Western immigrants. We applied Box-Jenkins interrupted time-series methods to test whether this cartoon controversy coincided with greater than expected counts of new involuntary psychiatric commitments among non-Western immigrants. The analytic period spans 48 quarters from January 1995 to December 2006. Findings support the hypothesis in that new involuntary psychiatric commitments rose 43% during the controversy (p <.01). Changes in help-seeking overall for mental health services do not appear to account for this rise in new involuntary commitments. Population-wide controversies may lower societal tolerance for behavior deemed deviant—and in this case, specifically among non-Western immigrants.

Andersen, Lars H. (2025): Thirty Years of Prison Alternatives in Denmark: Policy Efficiency and Inequality Before the Law. Nordic Journal of Criminology 26(1): 1-21 . https://www.idunn.no/doi/10.18261/njc.26.1.6

ABSTRACT

The use of non-custodial alternatives to imprisonment has grown dramatically over the past 30 years in the Nordic region. But few studies have analyzed the implications of this development. This paper focuses on the case of community service and home confinement under electronic monitoring in Denmark, programs that have been expanded 12 times since 1992. Results from population registry data analyses show that the risk of serving the equivalent of a prison sentence of up to a year in prison is currently below 50 percent because of these alternatives. Results further indicate persistent inequality in access to non-custodial alternatives along income, education, and ethnic background gradients; however, they also show that differences in recidivism rates across these gradients largely exceed differences that arise from the endogenous selection of people to alternatives within these gradients. Both in general and across the mentioned gradients, reform estimates suggest little-to-no causal impact of non-custodial alternatives on rates of criminal recidivism. Results thus portray the challenge of striking a balance between the principle of equality before the law and policy efficiency when implementing “smart sentences”.

Blaabæk, Ea H., Daniel J. Vigild, Felix Elwert, Peter Fallesen, and Lars H. Andersen (2024). Mild traumatic brain injury and criminal charges and convictions in mid and late adolescence. Journal of the American Medical Association: Pediatrics 178(11): 1164-1171. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2024.3452
** Study featured in news article in Science: https://www.science.org/content/article/mild-brain-injuries-don-t-predispose-kids-criminal-behavior-danish-study-suggests **

ABSTRACT

Importance: Childhood exposure to mTBI is common. Individuals with a childhood history of mTBI experience more frequent criminal justice involvement in mid to late adolescence and adulthood. No study had been conducted to examine whether the link is causal or spurious.

Objective: To determine whether mTBI in childhood causes criminal justice involvement in mid to late adolescence.

Design: Preregistered cohort study of all children born between 1995 and 2000 in Denmark, linked to all emergency room (ER) visits and hospitalizations before age 10, all criminal charges and convictions from age 15 to 20. We used sibling and twin fixed-effects models to evaluate the association after controlling for family-level confounding.

Setting: Population-based data on hospital and ER records as well as criminal justice records for the population of Denmark.

Participants: The exposure group contained all individuals born between 1995 and 2000 in Denmark and diagnosed with mTBI before age 10 without other intracranial or extracranial injuries before or at the time of diagnosis (n = 13 514). The comparison group contained all individuals born between 1995 and 2000 in Denmark who were not diagnosed with mTBI or intracranial or extracranial injuries before age 10 (n = 329 513).

Main Outcome(s) and Measure(s): We investigated the association between mTBI before age 10 and criminal charges and convictions from age 15 to 20 for the entire study population and separately by sex at birth, controlling for additional covariates. Key analyses restricted comparisons to full siblings and twins to control for unobserved family-level confounders.

Results: 49% of the total sample were female, 95% had at least one parent with Danish citizenship, and 23% of mothers held a college degree. We found a strong positive association between mTBI and criminal charges (OR: 1.258, 95% CI 1.185 to 1.336) and convictions (OR: 1.241, 95% CI 1.160 to 1.328). When controlling for family-level confounding, the associations became statistically insignificant and, in most models, greatly reduced. Results are robust across multiple model specifications.

Conclusions and Relevance: Although mTBI in childhood is predictive of adolescent criminal justice involvement, we found no evidence that mTBI causes criminal charges or convictions.

Fallesen, Peter, Lars H. Andersen, and Felix Elwert (2024). Heterogenous Causal Effects: Potentials and Pitfalls as Illustrated with Fatherhood and Earnings. Journal of Marriage and Family 86(5): 1519-1540. http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.13018

ABSTRACTObjective: To discuss how methods to estimate heterogenous causal effects can be applied in Family Science and to supply empirical examples using the case of fatherhood and earnings.Background: Many questions important to family scientists do not focus on one-size-fits-all average effects but rather on whether and how effects differ across groups. Recent methodological advances can assist this latter focus, offering new insights for theory and policy.Method: Using Danish administrative data on all men who entered fatherhood 2005–2016 and on men of comparable age who did not, we focus on two types of heterogeneity in effects. First, effect heterogeneity across observed and unobserved covariates; second, treatment effect heterogeneity across the distribution of outcome variables.Results: The fatherhood premium on annual labor income is, in fact, a fatherhood penalty on average and across most margins of heterogeneity. Substantial heterogeneity exists across observed and unobserved characteristics and across the distribution of labor market earnings, with results indicating larger penalties for lower earners and those least likely to become fathers.Conclusions: Effect heterogeneity in Family Science holds great potential to inform policy and theory. However, causal interpretations always require assumptions, and researchers must be vigilant that the assumptions they make are warranted for each specific application.

Nilsson, Sandra F., Thomas M. Laursen, Lars H. Andersen, Merete Nordentoft and Seena Fazel (2024). Homelessness, psychiatric disorders, and violence: A population-based cohort study. The Lancet Public Health 9(6): e376-e385. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(24)00096-3

ABSTRACTBackground: Homelessness is associated with adverse health and social outcomes. People experiencing homelessness have been found to have a high risk of violent crime victimisation as well as high prevalence of psychiatric disorders. It is poorly understood whether experiencing homelessness is associated with additional risks of violent offending and whether psychiatric disorders contribute to these risks. We examined the association between homelessness, psychiatric disorders, and first violence offence leading to conviction.Methods: We did a nationwide, register-based cohort study of all Danish residents who were alive at least 1 day during the study period, born between Jan 1, 1980, and Dec 31, 2006, and aged 15 years or older retrieved from the Danish Civil Registration System, which was linked to registers with information on homelessness, health care, and criminality. The exposure was any experience of homelessness, which was defined as having at least one contact with a homeless shelter during the study period. The outcome was first violent offence leading to a conviction. We calculated incidence rates per 10 000 person-years, incidence rate ratios (IRRs) using Poisson regression analysis, and probability of conviction of a violent offence using an Aalen–Johansen estimator. Analyses were stratified by sex and adjusted for calendar year of the study period, age, other sociodemographic factors, and psychiatric disorders.Findings: The study cohort included 1 786 433 Danish residents aged 15–42 years living in Denmark at some point from Jan 1, 2001, to Dec 31, 2021, contributing to 21 336 322 person-years at risk, of whom 57 084 (3·2%) individuals had their first violent offence leading to conviction during follow-up. 10 years after their first contact with a homeless shelter, 22·9% (95% CI 21·6–24·2) of men and 7·7% (6·8–8·7) of women had committed at least one violent crime leading to conviction. The fully adjusted IRRs of a violent offence leading to conviction were 4·8 (4·5–5·1) in men and 6·3 (5·6–7·2) in women experiencing homelessness compared with individuals who had not experienced homelessness. The IRR for a violent offence leading to conviction was highest in individuals experiencing homelessness and having co-occurring psychiatric disorders compared with those not experiencing homelessness and without co-occurring psychiatric disorders, especially drug use disorders (IRR in those experiencing homelessness and having a drug use disorder: 15·3 [14·1–16·7] in men and 40·1 [33·9–47·5] in women compared with individuals not experiencing homelessness and having no drug use disorder).Interpretation: Individuals experiencing homelessness had higher risks of a violent offence leading to conviction than those who had not experienced homelessness. In addition to preventing homelessness, public health and policy should consider how to reduce the risk of adverse outcomes in people experiencing homelessness.

Dustmann, Christian, Rasmus Landersø, and Lars H. Andersen (2024). Unintended Consequences of Welfare Cuts on Children and Adolescents. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 16(4): 161-185. https://doi.org/10.1257/app.202305192023

ABSTRACTThis paper studies the effects of a large welfare benefit reduction on the children in the affected families. The welfare cut targeted adult refugees who received residency in Denmark, and it reduced their disposable income by 30 percent on average over the first five years. We show that children exposed to the welfare cut during preschool and school-age obtained lower GPAs, experienced reduced well-being and overall education levels, and suffered lower employment and earnings as adults. Children in their teens at exposure faced large increases in conviction probabilities for violent and property crimes.

2023

Blaabæk, Ea H., Lars H. Andersen, and Peter Fallesen (2024). From Unequal Injuries to Unequal Learning? Socioeconomic gradients in childhood concussions and the impact on children’s academic performance. Social Science and Medicine 341: 116524. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.116524

ABSTRACTPrevious research identifies stark socioeconomic disparities in child injuries, yet research on the repercussions hereof on other aspects of children's lives remains sparse. This paper tests whether social gradients in minor traumatic brain injuries (mTBIs or concussions) contribute to corresponding inequalities in children’s academic performance. Previous research on this topic is mostly based on small samples and confounded by non-random selection into experiencing mTBIs. We improve on prior research by using high quality, large N, administrative registry data. Further, we control for selection into having an mTBI via comparing the test score progression of children having an mTBI with children who experience an mTBI in later years (staggered difference-in-differences). Based on Danish ER/hospital records and national test score data, we find that children from families with lower earnings and less education are more likely to experience an mTBI and that having an mTBI negatively correlates with reading test scores. However, comparing present with future mTBI cases, we show that having an mTBI within a year before a test does not negatively affect children’s reading scores. Our findings suggest that negative correlations between mTBIs and academic performance more likely reflect socioeconomic gradients in mTBI incidents rather than a direct causal effect. Further, socioeconomic gradients in mTBI incidents do not significantly contribute to corresponding disparities in academic performance.

Lok, Veeleah, Hugo Sjöqvist, Anna Sidorchuk, Pär Flodin, Walter Osika, Michael Daly, Philip Hyland, Lars H. Andersen, Peter Fallesen, Marcelo C. Cabrera, Ann K.S. Knudsen, Karen Wetherall, Emily Widnall, Jenny M Groarke, Cherie Armour, Christina Dalman, Anna-Clara Hollander, and Maria Niemi (2023). Changes in anxiety and depression during the COVID-19 pandemic in the European population: A meta-analysis of changes and associations with restriction policies. European Psychiatry 66(1): e87. https://doi.org/10.1192/j.eurpsy.2023.2467

ABSTRACTBackground: Early studies of common mental disorders (CMDs) during the COVID-19 pandemic mainly report increases; however, more recent findings have been mixed. Also, studies assessing the effects of restriction measures on CMDs show varied results. The aim of this meta-analysis was to assess changes in levels of CMDs from pre-/early to during the pandemic and the effects of restriction policies in the European population.
Methods: We searched for studies assessing both pre-pandemic and peri-pandemic self-reported emotional distress and symptoms of depression or anxiety among nationally/regionally representative samples in Europe and collected microdata from those studies. Estimates of corona containment index were related to changes in CMDs using random-effects meta-regression.
Results: Our search strategy resulted in findings from 15 datasets drawn from 8 European countries being included in the meta-analysis. There was no evidence of change in the prevalence of emotional distress, anxiety, or depression from before to during the pandemic; but from early pandemic periods to later periods, there were significant decreases in emotional distress and anxiety. Increased school restrictions and social distancing were associated with small increases in self-reported emotional distress.
Conclusions: Despite initial concerns of increased emotional distress and mental illness due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the results from this meta-analysis indicate that there was a decrease in emotional distress and no change in anxiety or depression in the general population in Europe. Overall, our findings support the importance of strong governance when implementing periodic and robust restriction measures to combat the spread of COVID-19.

Andersen, Lars H. (2024). Court Delays and Criminal Recidivism: Results from Danish Administrative Data and a Policy Reform. Justice Quarterly 41(5): 647-671. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2023.2260451.

ABSTRACTDelays at court are an everlasting and potentially consequential reality of criminal justice systems, although most would agree that the timely adjudication of cases is needed from both administrative, judicial, and individual perspectives. This paper uses administrative data and a policy reform in Denmark in 2007 to measure the unconfounded association between court delays – or, more specifically, time to adjudication – and criminal recidivism within 5 years. Results show that although court delays do not push more people into recidivism, the delays matter for how many crimes recidivists end up being convicted of. Also, criminality tends to be muted during the period from charge to adjudication (even in a context with low use of pretrial detention and no bail system), whereby court delays also matter for the timing of new crimes – a finding with important theoretical implications.

Dustmann, Christian, Rasmus Landersø, and Lars H. Andersen. (2024). Refugee Benefit Cuts. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 16(2):406-441. https://doi.org/10.1257/pol.20220062

ABSTRACTThis paper analyzes the effects of Denmark's Start Aid welfare reform that targets refugees. Implemented in 2002, it enables us to study not only the reform's immediate effects but also its longer-term consequences and its repeal a decade later. The reform-induced large transfer cuts led to an increase in employment rates, but only in the short run. Overall, the reform increased poverty rates and led to a rise in subsistence crime. Moreover, local demand conditions generate substantial heterogeneity in the reform's effects on immediate and longer-term employment.

Cardona, Marcelo, Lars H. Andersen, Peter Fallesen, and Tim A. Bruckner. (2023). Stress/Depression across the COVID-19 Pandemic in Denmark. BMC Public Health 23(1): 169. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-15129-5.

ABSTRACTBackground: Global estimates suggest strained mental health during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the lack of nationally representative and longitudinal data with clinically validated measures limits knowledge longer into the pandemic.Methods: Data from 10 rounds of nationally representative surveys from Denmark tracked trends in risk of stress/depression from just before the first lockdown and through to April 2022. We focused on age groups and men and women in different living arrangements and controlled for seasonality in mental health that could otherwise be spuriously related to pandemic intensity.Results: Prior to first lockdown, we observed a “parent gap”, which closed with the first lockdown. Instead, a gender gap materialized, with women experiencing higher risks than men—and higher than levels predating first lockdown. Older respondents (+ 70 years) experienced increasing risks of stress/depression early in the pandemic, while all other groups experienced decreases. But longer into the pandemic, risks increased for all age groups and reached (and sometimes exceeded) levels from before first lockdown.Conclusion: Denmark had low infection rates throughout most of the pandemic, low mortality rates across the entire pandemic, and offered financial aid packages to curb financial strains. Despite this circumstance, initial improvements to mental health during the first lockdown in Denmark were short-lived. Two years of pandemic societal restrictions correspond with deteriorating mental health, as well as a change from a parenthood gap in mental health before first lockdown to a gender gap two years into the pandemic.

2022

Hassan, Said, Camilla Hvidtfeldt, Lars H. Andersen, and Rebecca O. Udsen. (2023). Do Refugee Children Impair the Academic Performance of Native Children in the School? Informative Null Results from Danish Register Data. European Sociological Review 39(3):352-365. https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcac059 ** Winner of European Sociological Review Best Article of the Year 2023 Award **

ABSTRACTDiscussions concerning the social impact of accepting refugee immigrants arise each time large numbers of refugees apply for protection in rich countries. However, little evidence exists on how the integration of refugees into core welfare institutions affects native citizens who depend on and interact with these institutions. In this paper, we focus on whether receiving refugees in a school cohort affects the academic performance of natives, using administrative data from Denmark, which contain test scores on all children in public schools. We exploit variation in the timing of refugees’ entrance to schools to facilitate causal estimates. Our findings show that refugees tend to cluster in schools that had poorer performance even prior to the refugees’ arrival. When we take this selection pattern into account, the effect of receiving refugees on the academic performance trajectory of natives is both statistically insignificant and substantially unimportant.

Hyatt, Jordan M., Synøve N. Andersen, Emily Greberman, Lars H. Andersen, and Ivan Christensen. (2023). Developing Harm Reduction Policies: Evidence from Copenhagen’s Drug Consumption Rooms. Drug and Alcohol Review 42(1):3-6. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/dar.13509

ABSTRACTN/A

Hassan, Said, David S. Kirk, and Lars H. Andersen. (2022). The Importance of Living Arrangements for Criminal Persistence and Desistance: A Novel Test of Exposure to Convicted Family Members. Journal of Developmental and Life Course Criminology 8:571-596. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40865-022-00211-0

ABSTRACTLeveraging the richness of population register data in Denmark, this study provides an in-depth examination of the residential situations of the formerly incarcerated over the first 3 years after prison. These data allow us to examine precisely who former prisoners reside with after release, and whether the characteristics of housemates, such as prior conviction status, and relationship type, such as familial ties, are associated with criminal reconviction. While Denmark has one of the lowest incarceration rates in the world, like many other Western countries, it is challenged by high recidivism rates among the formerly incarcerated. Using data on the population of all individuals released from prison between 1991 and 2014 and estimation via Cox proportional hazards models, we find that formerly incarcerated individuals who move into a residence with other individuals with criminal records have significantly greater hazards of reconviction, even after controlling for an extensive set of observed confounders. Residing with family members, particularly spouses, significantly reduces the likelihood of recidivism, but only if the family members do not have a recent criminal conviction. Results underscore the importance of housing arrangements and family ties during the post-release period.

Andersen, Lars H. and Therese B. Christensen. (2022). Taking prior sick leave patterns into account when estimating health consequences of violence on the job. Workplace Health & Safety 70(11):515-524. https://doi.org/10.1177/21650799221096994

ABSTRACTBackground: Violence on the job has been shown to harm both physical and psychosocial health, but the results presented in existing studies might be biased because they have not considered prior indicators of such health.Methods: Physical violence and threats were pooled into a measure of workplace violence for 77,388 randomly sampled respondents from the working population in Denmark in 2012, 2014, and 2016. Longitudinal analyses of these survey data merged with administrative records on sick leave (exceeding 30 days, implying that the consequences of the violence were more serious) were performed. Separate analyses were conducted by sector, gender, and by gender within sectors.Findings: Experiencing violence increased sick leave +36% from before to after the violence relative to the general trend among other respondents that did not experience a violent event.Conclusions/Application to Practice: Work-related violence is a serious health issue, especially in health care, even when we meticulously took prior use of sick leave into account to obtain less biased results.

2021

Andersen, Lars H., Maria Fitzpatrick, and Christopher Wildeman. (2024). How Does Visitation Affect Incarcerated Persons and Their Families? Estimates Using Exogenous Variation in Visits Driven by Distance Between Home and Prison. Journal of Human Resources 59(2): 389-415. https://doi.org/10.3368/jhr.0620-10951R3

ABSTRACTTens of millions of people in the world are incarcerated, which may negatively affect them and their families. Visitation may mitigate the negative consequences, but there is little causally identified evidence on its efficacy. To generate plausibly causal estimates, we utilize the fact that incarcerated persons in Denmark are assigned to the prison with open capacity that is closest to their home. The distance-driven variation in visitation coupled with Danish registry data allow us to measure the effects of visitation on incarcerated persons and their families. We find little evidence that visitation affects incarcerated individuals or their family members.

Andersen, Lars H. (2022). The Future of Nordic Criminal Policy Evaluation. Kriminologia 2(1):79-88. https://doi.org/10.54332/krim.124936

ABSTRACTNordic criminal policy evaluation has unique features, such as ones related to policy context, policy content, and the availability of excellent register data. This paper briefly lays out these features and argues that the future of Nordic criminal policy evaluation could well lie in exploiting these features even more. It is argued that we should aim to tie criminal policy evaluation to social policy evaluation more broadly. And that we should aim to use policy evaluations to study margins of behavior rather than “just” measure average effects of reforms or policies. These aims will be hard to reach unless we think of and search for even better data than we already have.

Andersen, Lars H., Signe H. Andersen, and Peer E. Skov. (2022). Restricting Arranged Marriage Opportunities for Danish Minority Youth: Implications for Criminal Convictions. Journal of Quantitative Criminology 38:921–947. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10940-021-09521-w

ABSTRACTObjectives: To measure the effect of arranged marriages on criminal convictions among male ethnic minority youth in Denmark.Methods: To identify the effect, we rely on administrative data from before and after a national policy reform in 2002 that restricted ethnic minority youths’ access to their most prevalent type of marriage until both spouses were at least 24 years of age. We use difference-in-differences estimation and meticulously analyze potential time trends in the data.Results: Although the reform substantially decreased marriage rates in both the short (24 percent decrease at age 24) and longer (10 percent at age 30) run, this reform effect produced no response in criminal conviction risks in neither short nor long run.Conclusion: Criminologists discuss whether social institutions, such as marriage, influence desistance from crime or whether the association is driven by unobserved heterogeneity. Several empirical strategies have been proposed to settle the discussion. Our contribution to this line of research is an alternative empirical strategy that relies on a natural experiment. Our study focuses only on one specific type of marriage in one context and focuses on criminal convictions rather than behavior per se—which are important limitations. Still, results uniformly reject the hypothesis that the marriages in our study influenced criminal convictions.

Andersen, Lars H., Peter Fallesen, and Tim Bruckner. (2021). Risk of Stress/Depression and Functional Impairment in Denmark Immediately Following a COVID-19 Shutdown. BMC Public Health 21:984. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-11020-3

ABSTRACTBackground: Existing estimates of the impact of the COVID-19 burden on mental wellbeing come from countries with high mortality rates. This study therefore aimed to investigate the impact of the first COVID-19 lockdown (March–April 2020) on risk for stress/depression and functional impairment in a representative sample of adult individuals in Denmark, which had lower infection rates, and whether the impact of lockdown was heterogeneous across living situation.Methods: Using a representative, randomly drawn sample from the complete Danish adult population interviewed in March 2 to April 13, 2020 (n = 2836) and again in July 2020 (n = 1526, 54% retention rate), we study how the imposed lockdown announced March 11 following the onset of the first Danish wave of COVID-19 infections affected mental wellbeing. We use the World Health Organization Five Well-being Index (WHO-5) and the Work and Social Adjustment Scale (WSAS) to capture risk for stress/depression (WHO-5 < 50) and functional impairment (WSAS > 10). Using covariate adjusted ordinary least squares linear probability models and exploiting variation in the timing of responses occurring just before and just after the introduction of lockdown, we compare respondents before lockdown to respondents that answered during lockdown, as well as to answers in re-interviews in July.Results: In our fully controlled models, we find reduced depressive symptoms among adults immediately after the shutdown, concentrated in adults with children living at home (−.089, p < .01 (from pre lockdown baseline .273)). Measures of functional impairment also declined immediately after the March shutdown among adults with children living at home (−.066, p < .05 (from pre lockdown baseline .150)). Impairment intensified for the entire sample between March and July (+.199, p < .001 (from pre lockdown baseline .248)), but depressive symptoms remained at lower rate in July (−.033, p < .05 (from pre lockdown baseline .332).Conclusions: Findings in Denmark indicate that living with children at home may have, in the short term, buffered the potential mental health sequelae of the COVID-19 shutdown.

Anker, Anne S. T. and Lars H. Andersen. (2021). Does the Intergenerational Transmission of Crime Depend on Family Complexity? Journal of Marriage and Family 85(5):1268-1286. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12770

ABSTRACTObjective: This study examines whether the intergenerational transmission of crime depends on family complexity.Background: Research has found a substantial intergenerational transmission of crime. But the focus on biological parents in such research tends to not fully align with current demographic trends—which emphasize increasing family complexity (in the form of family instability and prevalence of stepparent-families)—nor with theories which predict why we should observe such transmissions.Method: We use Danish administrative data on children born in 1985–1995 and linear probability models to estimate whether the association between paternal conviction and offspring conviction risk varies between children living in intact families with both biological parents at age 15 and children living in alternative family constellations, defined by instability and presence of a stepfather in the family. We furthermore examine whether a stepfather's conviction predicts children's conviction risk.Results: The influence of paternal conviction—net of differences in demographics and parental socioeconomic status—was significantly diminished only in family constellations where a stepfather was present and mostly so in families with high degree of stability. But having a convicted stepfather was associated with a higher conviction risk.Conclusion: The findings have important implications for theories of the intergenerational transmission of crime as they underline that biological family ties do not lock in children's future crime risks.

2020

Larsen, Kira S., Lars H. Andersen, and Britt Ø. Larsen. (2022) Pushed Out of the Education System: Using a Natural Experiment to Evaluate Consequences for Boys. Journal of Experimental Criminology 18(2):411-438. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-020-09444-9

ABSTRACTObjectives: To examine the short-term effects of admission requirements for upper secondary vocational education and training (VET) on enrollment and criminal offending among academically low-achieving boys.Methods: We apply multi-group difference-in-differences models to full population data and analyze an educational policy reform in Denmark (N = 60,759).Results: The reform caused a 16 percentage points lower enrollment in VET among academically low-achieving boys, and their risk of being charged with a crime increased by up to two percentage points 9 months after the end of compulsory school. However, after 12 months, the effect on criminal charges disappeared.Conclusion: In the education-crime nexus, educational enrollment in upper secondary education is an understudied margin, which has important implications for both scholars and policy-makers. Limitations include the short follow-up period and that the analyses examine effects for boys only.

Anker, Anne S.T., Lars H. Andersen, and Christopher Wildeman. (2020). Estimating and Explaining Racial Ethnic Disparities in the Cumulative Prevalence of Parental Imprisonment in Denmark. Demographic Research 43 – article 22:617-658. https://dx.doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2020.43.22

ABSTRACTBackground: Paternal incarceration is a well-known risk factor for poor child outcomes. Although existing research documents the prevalence of paternal incarceration and racial/ethnic disparities in this risk, research in this area is still sorely limited in two ways. First, the range of groups for which we know the cumulative risk of paternal incarceration is still quite narrow. Second, no research has decomposed disparities in the risk of paternal incarceration into analytically distinct components.Objective: To estimate and explain ethnic disparities in paternal incarceration risk in Denmark.Methods: We use Danish administrative data and two core demographic techniques. First, we use birth cohort life tables to estimate country of origin-specific paternal incarceration risks for native Danes, Western descendants of immigrants, and ten groups of non-Western descendants of immigrants. Second, we conduct Blinder-Oaxaca decompositions to see how three factors – paternal employment, education, and previous criminal justice contact – shape these risks.Results: We find that descendants of immigrants are much more likely to experience paternal incarceration than native Danes, but that there is substantial heterogeneity across country of origin. Additionally, we find that for most countries the observed disparities in paternal incarceration risk can be almost entirely explained by group differences in paternal employment, education, and previous criminal justice contact.Contribution: By using two core demographic techniques we provide insight into how future research on paternal incarceration and other risk factors for poor child well-being could better estimate and explain the risk of experiencing these events.

Wakefield, Sara, and Lars H. Andersen. (2020). Pretrial Detention and the Costs of System Overreach for Employment and Family Life. Sociological Science 7:342-366. https://doi.org/10.15195/v7.a14

ABSTRACTUsing unique Danish register data that allow for comparisons across both conviction and incarceration status, this article analyzes the association between pretrial detention and work, family attachment, and recidivism. We find that pretrial detention may impose unique social costs, apart from conviction or additional punishments. Most notably, men who are detained pretrial experience poorer labor market trajectories than men who are convicted of a crime (but not incarcerated). Importantly, this result holds even for men who are detained pretrial but who are not convicted of the crime. Consistent with prior research, we also find that pretrial detention is unrelated to later family formation but might disrupt preexisting household arrangements. Finally, the associations between pretrial detention and work and family life are not counterbalanced by reductions in recidivism.

2019

Wildeman, Christopher, and Lars H. Andersen. (2020). Long Term Consequences of Being Placed in Disciplinary Segregation. Criminology 58(3):423-453. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12241

ABSTRACTBeing placed in restrictive housing is considered one of the most devastating experiences a human can endure, yet a scant amount of research has been conducted to test how this experience affects core indicators of prisoner reentry such as employment and recidivism. In this article, we use Danish registry data, which allow for us to link penal conditions to postrelease outcomes, to show how the reentry outcomes of individuals placed in disciplinary segregation, which is placement in restrictive housing because of disciplinary infractions, compare with those sanctioned for in-prison offenses but not placed in segregation. The results from matched difference-in-differences analyses show that Danish inmates placed in disciplinary segregation experience larger drops in employment and larger increases in the risk of being convicted of a new crime in the 3 years after release from a correctional facility than do Danish inmates who were sanctioned for a serious offense but not placed in disciplinary segregation as a result. Because being placed in disciplinary segregation, and restrictive housing more broadly, is so common, these results indicate that restrictive housing placement may be a key moderator of the effects of incarceration that merits more attention from criminologists, provided the associations shown here represent causal effects and generalize.

Wildeman, Christopher, and Lars H. Andersen. (2020). Solitary Confinement Placement and Post-Release Mortality Risk Among Formerly Incarcerated Individuals: A Population-Based Study. The Lancet Public Health 5:e107-e113. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(19)30271-3

ABSTRACTBackground: With more than 10 million people incarcerated worldwide, some of whom will have experienced solitary confinement, a better understanding of health and mortality after release is needed. The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between placement in solitary confinement and mortality in the 5 years following release among formerly incarcerated individuals.Methods: In this population-based study we used data from Danish administrative registers and administrative dataset from the Danish Prison and Probation Service. We linked information on all Danish individuals who had been incarcerated for more than 7 days during 2006–11, with information on mortality for the 60 months following release. We used Cox proportional hazards models to estimate the association between being placed in solitary confinement and mortality (death and cause of death) among formerly incarcerated Danish individuals, controlling for several possible confounders (prison security level, release year, sentence length, reason for conviction, age at admission, sex, ethnic minority background, and education level) and using a reference group of incarcerated Danish individuals who had been sanctioned for in-prison infractions but not placed in solitary confinement in some models.Findings: Our study included 13 776 individuals, which translated to 812 374 person-months of exposure to the risk of mortality up to Dec 31, 2016. Formerly incarcerated Danish individuals who spent time in solitary confinement had higher overall mortality 5 years after release (4·5%) than did those who had not spent time in solitary confinement (2·8%; p<0·0001). After adjusting for possible confounders, our results suggested an association between solitary confinement and elevated mortality due to non-natural causes (hazard ratio 2·342, 95% CI 1·527–3·592). We did not identify a significant association with natural causes.Interpretation: The results from these analyses indicate that solitary confinement placement might be a key moderator of the association between a history of incarceration and post-release outcomes. Our findings suggest that incarcerated individuals ever placed in solitary confinement are a vulnerable population in need of interventions.

Andersen, Lars H. (2020). Using a Natural Experiment to Measure the Impact of Swifter Punishment on Criminal Recidivism. Journal of Experimental Criminology 16(2):289-298. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-019-09355-4

ABSTRACTObjectives: Measure the impact of swifter punishment on the timing of first imprisonment and on criminal recidivism among young violent offenders.Methods: A policy reform in 1994 promoted swifter case processing for violent offenders in Denmark. I exploit Danish administrative data and this policy reform as a natural experiment to measure the impact of swifter punishment on the timing of first imprisonment and on criminal recidivism among young men before and after the reform (N = 521).Results: The reform promoted faster case processes and thereby also affected the timing of first imprisonment. It also led to more criminal recidivism, both regarding the probability of new charges and the average number of new charges.Conclusions: When imprisonment happens matters for youth recidivism, a conclusion that has implications for our understanding of the relationship between deterrence and the timing of punishment. Implications of the study are limited by its historical and cultural context, and future research should validate the findings in other and more recent contexts.

2018

Baćak, Valerio, Lars H. Andersen, and Jason Schnittker. (2019). The Effect of Timing of Incarceration on Mental Health: Evidence from a Natural Experiment. Social Forces 98(1):303-328. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soy102

ABSTRACTThere is growing evidence that incarceration is associated with adverse health outcomes, but little is known about how circumstances surrounding incarceration relate to health. In the present study, we estimate the effect of timing of incarceration on mental health using panel data constructed from the Danish population registry. We exploit a 1994 criminal justice reform as a natural experiment that created exogenous variation in the age at which offenders were first incarcerated: because of policy change, incarceration occurred earlier than it would have otherwise. For the three out of the four mental health outcomes assessed in the study—having undergone psychiatric treatment, being in therapy or consultation, and being charged with the possession of drugs—we found consistent support for the notion that earlier incarceration is more harmful. The study refines our understanding of the collateral consequences of incarceration and it is the first to provide quasi-experimental evidence for the mental health effects of timing of incarceration.

Goldman, Alyssa, Signe Hald Andersen, Lars H. Andersen, and Christopher Wildeman. (2019). Can Alternatives to Incarceration Enhance Child Well-being? In: Eddy, J. Mark and Julie Poehlmann-Tynan (Eds.). Children of Incarcerated Parents: A Handbook for Researchers and Practitioners, 2nd Edition. New York: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16707-3

ABSTRACTIn this chapter, we consider how alternatives to parental incarceration such as probation and community service could influence child well-being. As increasing research documents the largely negative outcomes for children with incarcerated parents, the broader use of alternative sentencing may serve as an important buffer against the otherwise adverse effects of parental incarceration for an already disadvantaged population of American children. Our chapter includes four sections. We first discuss what alternatives to incarceration in the United States typically include. In the second section, we outline theoretical mechanisms through which these alternatives could enhance child well-being. Next, we discuss the data structure needed to rigorously test these alternatives. In the final section, we review the limited U.S.-based research on the topic, as well as some of the more rigorous and expansive empirical work on alternatives to incarceration and child well-being that has been conducted outside of the U.S. We conclude with a discussion of key directions to advance research in this area, including a review of promising and ongoing programmatic efforts to implement related policy changes for offenders with minor children.

Andersen, Lars H. (2018). Danish Register Data: Flexible Administrative Data and their Relevance for Studies of Intergenerational Transmission, in Eichelsheim, Veroni I. and Steve G. A. van de Weijer (Eds.). Intergenerational continuity of criminal and antisocial behaviour: An international overview of studies. Cambridge, UK: Routledge. ISBN 9780367483395.

ABSTRACTDanish register data are a promising yet untapped data source for studying the intergenerational transmission of crime and delinquency. This chapter describes the fundamental nature of register data from Denmark, including examples of the highly detailed register and variable documentations which are available from Statistics Denmark, and describes how these data can be used to compile full population panel datasets. Because individual-level information can be merged across various registers, the data can be used to describe many domains of life, just as they can be matched with policy reforms and the like to enhance causal analysis. The chapter summarizes key research findings based on Danish register data and offers new directions for register-based criminological research. At the same time, the chapter also notes some limitations of using Danish register data to study the intergenerational transmission of crime and delinquency

2017

Andersen, Lars H. (2018) Assortative Mating and the Intergenerational Transmission of Parental Incarceration Risks. Journal of Marriage and Family 80(2):463-477. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12459

ABSTRACTResearch on the intergenerational transmission of incarceration tends to emphasize the strong association between fathers' involvement with the criminal justice system and sons' behavioral outcomes, such as experiencing incarceration. The father–son association in incarceration risks is, however, not the only mechanism through which these risks may travel across generations. Although female rates of incarceration are generally low (even for women who experienced parental incarceration when they were girls), women could transmit incarceration risks across generations through their choice of partner. This article uses administrative data on three generations in Denmark to show that assortative mating—the nonrandom selection of partners with similar characteristics—indeed make women just as likely as men to transmit incarceration risks across generations.

Andersen, Signe H., Lars H. Andersen, Maria D. Fitzpatrick, and Christopher Wildeman. (2018). How Alternatives to Imprisonment Could Affect Child Well-Being, in Wildeman, Christopher, Anna R. Haskins, and Julie Poehlmann-Tynan (eds.) When Parents Are Incarcerated: Interdisciplinary Research and Interventions to Support Children. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association Press. ISBN: 978-1-4338-2821-8

ABSTRACTNot available.

2016

Andersen, Lars H. Marriage, In-Laws, and Crime. (2017). The Case of Delinquent Brothers-in-Law. Criminology 55(2):438-464. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12137

ABSTRACTWith marriage comes in-laws, and if the in-laws include delinquent males, their delinquency could affect the prosocial effects of the given marriage. In this article, I focus on the effect of having a convicted brother-in-law as a general indicator of this broader phenomenon of family-formation processes impairing the positive impact of marriage on crime desistance. I use registry data on all men from birth cohorts 1965–1975 in Denmark (N = 69,066) to show that when a man marries, his new family ties to delinquent brother(s)-in-law do indeed hinder his criminal desistance. The results that take into account the characteristics of husbands, wives, their shared family-formation process, and the criminality of male family members suggest that 1) family dynamics tend to keep criminality within family networks and 2) influences from one's broader social network through marriage are important for the protective effects of marriage. Analyses of previous conviction, co-offending between a man and his brother-in-law, as well as analyses of in-laws who reside in close proximity confirm the two mentioned main findings. In all, the findings reported in this article add to our understanding of the processes by which families are tied, and how these family-formation processes influence men's behavior.

Fallesen, Peter, and Lars H. Andersen. (2017). Explaining the Consequences of Imprisonment for Union Formation and Dissolution in Denmark. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 36(1):154-177. https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.21933

ABSTRACTCrime and subsequent imprisonment reduces men's chances on the marriage market and increases their divorce risk, but existing research, with a few notable exceptions, is silent about the underlying mechanisms driving these effects. This article studies the effect of home confinement under electronic monitoring as a noncustodial alternative to imprisonment on the risk of relationship dissolution and being single, thereby distinguishing between effects of incarceration and of committing crime. We study a policy that expanded the use of electronic monitoring to address nonrandom selection into electronic monitoring instead of in prison. Results from a sample of 4,522 men show that home confinement under electronic monitoring significantly and persistently lowers the risk both of being single and of becoming single during the first five years following conviction. The results show that one of the tools that could promote decarceration trends also secures better relationship outcomes of convicted men.

Andersen, Lars H., Anne S. T. Anker, and Signe H. Andersen. (2016). A Formal Decomposition of Declining Youth Crime in Denmark. Demographic Research 35: 1303-1316. https://dx.doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2016.35.44

ABSTRACTBackground: Over the recent decades and across most developed democracies, youth crime has been in steady decline, and declining youth crime now constitutes an important contemporary demographic change. Yet underneath this change lingers the question of how we should best grasp declining youth crime.Objective: To decompose declining youth crime in Denmark into its extensive and intensive margins, and show results from birth cohort analyses.Methods: We apply Das Gupta’s (1993) method for rate decomposition to Danish registry data that holds information on all criminal justice contacts of full birth cohorts. We show results among 15-17-year-old youth by year as well as follow birth cohorts by age.Results: The main driver of declining youth crime in Denmark is that fewer young people are experiencing contact with the criminal justice (extensive margin), and not lower rates of criminal recidivism among youth with criminal justice contact (intensive margin); a result which is found using both year and birth cohort analyses.Contribution: The knowledge provided in our descriptive findings ‒ that change at the extensive margin is the main driver of declining youth crime in Denmark ‒ represents a first step towards understanding the important demographic change that youth crime has been in decline across developed democracies over the past decades.

Andersen, Lars H. (2016). How Children’s Educational Outcomes and Criminality Vary by Duration and Frequency of Paternal Incarceration. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 665(1):149–170. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716216632782

ABSTRACTExisting studies of the consequences of paternal incarceration for children treat paternal incarceration as a dichotomous event (a child either experiences paternal incarceration or does not), although effects could accumulate with both the frequency and duration of paternal incarcerations. In this article I use register data on Danish children from birth cohort 1991, some of whom experienced paternal incarceration before age 15, to show how educational outcomes and criminality up to age 20 vary by frequency and total duration of paternal incarceration. The high quality of Danish register data also allows me to distinguish between paternal arrest and paternal incarceration and to show results for the total duration of paternal incarcerations conditioned on frequency of paternal incarceration. Results show that educational outcomes and criminality indeed correlate with duration and frequency of paternal incarceration, indicating that treating paternal incarceration as a dichotomous event blurs important heterogeneity in the consequences of paternal incarceration.

Aaltonen, Mikko, Torbjørn Skardhamar, Anders Nilsson, Lars H. Aandersen, Olof Bäckman, Felipe Estrada, and Petri Danielsson. (2017). Comparing Employment Trajectories Before and After First Imprisonment in Four Nordic Countries. British Journal of Criminology 57(4):428-447. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azw026

ABSTRACTEmployment plays a crucial role in the re-entry process and in reducing recidivism among offenders released from prison. But at the same time, imprisonment is generally regarded as harmful to post-release employment prospects. Little is known, however, about whether or not offenders’ employment trajectories before and after imprisonment are similar across countries. As a first step towards filling this gap in research, this paper provides evidence on employment trajectories before and after imprisonment in four Nordic welfare states: Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Using data gathered from administrative records on incarcerated offenders, the analysis focuses on individuals imprisoned for the first time and who served a prison sentence less than one year in length. Results show that although employment trajectories develop in mostly similar ways before and after imprisonment across these countries, important differences exist.

2015

Wildeman, Christopher, and Lars H. Andersen. (2015). Cumulative risks of paternal and maternal incarceration in Denmark and the United States. Demographic Research 32: 1567-1580. https://dx.doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2015.32.57

ABSTRACTBackground: No research has estimated the cumulative risk of paternal or maternal incarceration in any country other than the U.S., so it remains unclear how much more likely U.S. children are to be exposed to parental incarceration than children living in other countries.Objective: To estimate the cumulative risks of paternal and maternal incarceration (including even very short jail stays of less than 24 hours) by age 14 for the 1990 Danish birth cohort. We then compare these estimates to equivalent estimates for the 1990 U.S. birth cohort.Methods: We use birth cohort life tables and Danish registry data, which provide administrative records on all incarcerations in Denmark, to estimate the cumulative risks of paternal and maternal incarceration. We follow the full 1990 Danish birth cohort (N = 62,982) up to age 14 to see whether each child has ever experienced different lengths of paternal and maternal incarceration.Results: We estimate that 1.54% of Danish children experienced paternal imprisonment and that 8.78% of Danish children experienced any paternal incarceration (including jail stays less than 24 hours), indicating that U.S. children are almost as likely to have their fathers sent to prison (which usually results from a sentence of at least one year in the U.S.) as Danish children are to have their fathers spend less than one day in jail. Results for maternal imprisonment are similar.Conclusions: U.S. children are far more likely to be exposed to parental incarceration than Danish children, suggesting that imprisonment contributes not only to inequality among children within the U.S., but also to inequality between children in the U.S. and children in other developed democracies.

Andersen, Signe Hald, Lars H. Andersen, and Peer E. Skov. (2015). Effect of Marriage and Spousal Criminality on Recidivism. Journal of Marriage and Family 77(2):496-509. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12176

ABSTRACTThe authors analyzed whether the effect of marriage on recidivism varied by spousal criminality. For this purpose, they used propensity score matching and full population data from Statistics Denmark on all unmarried and previously convicted men from birth cohorts 1965–1985 (N = 102,839). The results showed that marriage reduced recidivism compared to nonmarriage only when the spouse had no criminal record. Similarly, marriage to a nonconvicted spouse reduced recidivism significantly more than marriage to a convicted spouse. These findings not only underline how important marriage is for social integration but also stress the heterogeneous nature of the protective effects of marriage.

2014

Andersen, Lars H., and Christopher Wildeman. (2015). Measuring the Effect of Probation and Parole Officers on Labor Market Outcomes and Recidivism. Journal of Quantitative Criminology 31(4):629-652. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10940-014-9243-4

ABSTRACTObjectives: Use a unique dataset to pair probation and parole officers and their clients in Denmark in 2002–2009 to identify causal effects of these officers on labor market outcomes and recidivism.Methods: To identify these effects, we rely on data from all probationers and parolees in Copenhagen, where a rotational assignment process randomizes clients to officers. We apply OLS models to test whether the inclusion of probation and parole officer fixed effects improves model fit, and we show the impact of officer fixed effects by generating predicted values for one individual, varying only the officer.Results: The first stage of the analysis shows that the assignment of a probation or parole officer is indeed random in Copenhagen—at least in regards to the vast majority of background characteristics—suggesting that we are able to identify causal effects of probationer and parolee assignment on labor market outcomes and recidivism. The second stage of our analysis shows that although to a lower degree than common sense might suggest, probation and parole officers do matter for their clients’ dependency on public benefit transfers (around 10 percentage points) and criminal recidivism (around 30 percentage points), whereas earnings are unaffected.Conclusion: As no study has yet to identify causal effects of probation and parole officer assignment, this study makes a novel contribution to the literature on the effects of criminal justice contact on subsequent life-course outcomes. Although generalizability to the US context is uncertain because we rely on Danish data, our findings nonetheless point in interesting directions for future research.

Andersen, Lars H., and Signe H. Andersen. (2014). Effect of Electronic Monitoring on Social Welfare Dependence. Criminology & Public Policy 13(3):349-379. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12087

ABSTRACTResearch Summary: We studied the effect on social welfare dependence of serving a sentence under electronic monitoring rather than in prison using Danish registry data and two policy shifts that extended the use of electronic monitoring in Denmark. We found that electronic monitoring is less harmful than imprisonment, at least for younger offenders, whereas it does not leave older offenders worse off than imprisonment.Policy Implications: As the United States moves toward noncustodial alternatives to imprisonment, policy makers might benefit from knowledge on experiences from other contexts. The experiences from Denmark are clear: Electronic monitoring is less harmful than imprisonment to the life-course outcomes of offenders. Because electronic monitoring could be less costly for the corrections administrations than imprisonment, efforts to extend the use of electronic monitoring in the United States could be accelerated.

Not peer reviewed publications

Andersen, Lars H. (2023). Addressing homelessness after prison release. Invited comment in The Lancet Public Health: https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(23)00181-0 Andersen, Lars H. og Bent Jensen (2023). Hvad vi ved om de dømte og deres kriminalitet. Gyldendal og ROCKWOOL Fondens Forskningsenhed. Andersen, Lars H. (2020) "Introduktion til temaet Børn af ikke-vestlige indvandrere". I Andersen, Signe H., Bent Jensen, Bodil W. Nielsen, og Jan R. Skaksen: Hvad ved vi om børn og deres opvækstvilkår. København: Gyldendal og ROCKWOOL Foundation Research Unit:231-242. Wildeman, Christopher, and Lars H. Andersen (2020). Even better data on solitary confinement are needed. Commentary in The Lancet Public Health. Andersen, Lars H., Kristian H. Bentsen, Camilla Hvidtfeldt, Bent Jensen, Jan R. Skaksen and Peer E. Skov (2017). Danskernes liv med skatter, sort arbejde og gør det selv-arbejde. ROCKWOOL Foundation Research Unit og Syddansk Universitetsforlag. Andersen, Lars H., and Torben Tranæs (2015): "Er ikke-vestlige indvandrere og efterkommere mere kriminelle end danskere?" I Jensen, Bent, Ditlev Tamm, and Torben Tranæs: Forbrydelse, straf og afsoning i Danmark. ROCKWOOL Foundation Research Unit og Gyldendal: 64-78.

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