In Doing Time on the Outside, anthropologist Donald Braman studies one aspect of the effects of mass incarceration which is often overlooked by other researchers. Analyzing the personal stories of families whose loved ones are in prison as well as incarcerated individuals, Braman argues that incarceration not only punishes offenders, but also directly affects their immediate family members. According to Braman (2004), incarceration causes social difficulties in the lives of these families by "transforming the social institutions of social exchange, kinship and community", devaluing reciprocity and making offenders less responsible towards their families (p. 9). no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Additionally, it is widely believed that incarceration is disproportionately high in disadvantaged communities, as a lack of economic opportunity often leads young adults to engage in criminal activities. . Braman, however, also focuses on the consequences of incarceration by providing evidence that reveals another aspect of the relationship between poverty and incarceration: as he states, "many inner-city families not only experience incarceration because that they are poor, but also because they are poor. because they experience incarceration” (Braman, 2004, p. 154). Thus, an important claim that Braman draws from his research is that incarceration exacerbates economic adversity, particularly in already disadvantaged communities. One of the main reasons Braman gives for this key claim is that incarceration decreases economic opportunities for ex-offenders. A second reason is that incarceration affects families by inhibiting capital accumulation; and therefore, incarceration also diminishes the wealth that future generations of these families will inherit. Therefore, the economic adversity that results from incarceration not only affects prisoners upon release due to diminished economic opportunities, but it also greatly affects prisoners' families from the time of imprisonment. As mentioned earlier, Braman's main type of evidence is a collection of personal testimonies from interviews he conducted with offenders and their families, during their sentences and sometimes after their release. The story of an offender named Clinton who went through the prison system several times primarily supports Braman's argument that incarceration diminishes economic opportunities for ex-offenders. Clinton failed to find employment after his release, which Clinton and Braman believe was due to his criminal record (Braman, 2004, p. 147). Personal accounts also reveal that because of the higher expenses offenders' families face due to incarceration and the departure of the primary breadwinner, these families often must deplete their wealth to cover the new expenses. For example, Braman explains how some families resort to remortgaging their homes, which is problematic because it devalues ​​their wealth. In one story, a family lost their home even after a remortgage and several others saw the value of their homes decline due to the remortgage (Braman, 2004, p. 158). And not only does incarceration deplete families of their wealth, it also prevents them from accumulating capital, as they must devote more of theirincome to expenses related to incarceration. Additionally, all of these economic adversities resulting from incarceration increasingly impact families in disadvantaged communities because they already had limited income to begin with. Important to his central claim is Braman's assertion about the relationship between incarceration and economic adversity. , which states that the effects of incarceration have a profound impact on offenders' families in socio-economic terms. First, because incarceration reduces the likelihood that a prisoner will earn sustainable income after release, the economic adversity that families face while incarcerated – such as unexpected higher expenses and a decrease in the child's total income. household – becomes a problem that is likely to persist in the long term. This means that not only are offenders held less accountable for their responsibilities at home because they cannot provide for their families while incarcerated, but they are also unable to fulfill this responsibility after their release in because of the reduced earning potential associated with a criminal record. Second, because incarceration inhibits capital accumulation, incarceration also affects future generations by decreasing the wealth they will inherit. The most important effects are that these next generations will likely remain in poverty, their communities will likely remain poor, and so the correlation between poverty and incarceration is a situation in which one exacerbates the other and vice versa. According to Braman (2004), the bigger picture demonstrates that diminishing economic exchange between offenders and their families progressively reduces kinship, trust, and social reciprocity within their communities (p. 162). Furthermore, it leads to a deterioration of family values ​​over generations, again largely due to incarceration (Braman, 2004, p. 162). An article by Bruce Western provides additional evidence that supports Braman's conclusions about the relationship. between incarceration and economic opportunity, although analyzing different data. In “The Impact of Incarceration on Wage Mobility and Inequality,” Western (2002) studies ex-offenders’ access to stable jobs in which wage mobility is normally experienced (p. 527). Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) from 1983 to 1999, Western analyzes the career histories of ex-offenders to look for changes in wages. He finds that incarceration not only reduces the wage income of ex-offenders in general, but also negatively affects the rate of growth of their wages. Western (2002) finds that incarceration reduces wages by 10 to 20 percent and affects wage mobility by up to 30 percent (p. 541). Western's article supports Braman's conclusion that incarceration exacerbates economic adversity by diminishing economic opportunity. However, Western focuses primarily on wage mobility as an economic opportunity, while Braman focuses primarily on the challenge ex-offenders face simply finding employment. Indeed, the two researchers collect different data. The biggest difference between this data is that Western's data spans a longer period of time, allowing it to draw its conclusions. Furthermore, by analyzing the evidence that Braman gathers from personal testimonies such as that of Clinton – who resorted to drug activities after.