Collateral Sanctions and American Exceptionalism

This chapter presents a comparative analysis of collateral sanctions, which encompass a broad array of restrictions that befall offenders in addition to their sentence during the time they are under a criminal justice sanction and often well beyond. Differences between European countries and the United States with respect to the imposition, the number, the types, and the length of collateral sanctions reflect strikingly dissimilar philosophies about how to treat those with a criminal record. The European model prioritizes reintegration and rehabilitation while the United States continues to exclude and penalize those who ran afoul of the law. On both sides of the Atlantic, however, offenders considered at a high risk of reoffending have increasingly been subjected to collateral sanctions.

Collateral Sanctions

Collateral sanctions are legal restrictions on the rights and privileges of people who have experienced contact with the criminal justice system, particularly contact resulting in conviction. Usually placed in civil and regulatory codes, collateral sanctions may limit a person’s ability to vote, live in public housing, own a firearm, qualify for an occupational license, serve in the military, receive public benefits, sit on a jury, or borrow money for college, among other activities. Yet, because they are usually defined as “indirect” consequences of a conviction, they may never surface in the criminal justice process, and they frequently extend far beyond the sentence. Such restrictions can deeply compromise the civic status and life chances of Americans with conviction records. But they are far from uniform: some serious restrictions are triggered by criminal justice involvement well short of a conviction, while others mark only some classes of offenders or operate only in some states. Layered into the federal system, multiplying the complications of criminal law and regulatory law, and imposed by civil servants with wide leeway in their interpretation of rules, American collateral sanctions are varied and complex. Their reach and severity in the United States appear to be unique in the democratic world and mark an important respect in which the American carceral state extends beyond mass incarceration.

Social Exclusion as a State-Level Predictor of Changes in Collateral Sanctions

Collateral sanctions are civil penalties or disabilities imposed upon people who are arrested, charged, or convicted of a crime. Little research is available concerning state-level predictors of these policies in the United States. Current research suggests that racial threat and political conservatism are associated with harsher sanctions or more restrictions in the realms of employment, housing, social benefits, and other categories. Using state report cards from the Legal Action Center, this study builds on existing knowledge by testing the relationship between state-level variables consistent with a social exclusion framework and collateral sanctions policies while also testing the relationship between social exclusion and changes in these policies over time. Results indicate that higher levels of social exclusion, measured by affordable housing scarcity, public benefit usage, and state fiscal health, may play a role in the adoption of state collateral sanction policies over time. In contrast to previous research, results offer mixed evidence regarding the relationship between the racial makeup of the state and the adoption of collateral sanctions policies. Policy implications are discussed.

Felony Collateral Sanctions Effects on Recidivism: A Literature Review

Despite recent advances in prisoner reentry and felony collateral consequences literature, the literature on collateral sanctions—intended legal consequences of criminal conviction—remains underdeveloped and unorganized. This article aims to take stock of the collateral sanctions literature to determine what the field currently knows about adult felony collateral sanctions’ effects on criminal recidivism. The author conducted a literature review of publications related to the topic of collateral sanctions and recidivism between 1995 and 2014. From these findings, the author outlines the state of current collateral sanctions research, identifies existing gaps in the literature, and discusses future research’s needed directions and challenges. Collateral sanctions and their effects remain mostly “invisible” despite a growing body of literature indicating that, at least for some sanctions, recidivism may be an unintended consequence of intended collateral sanction policies.