Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2025

DOI

10.1007/s11211-025-00465-1

Publication Title

Social Justice Research

Volume

38

Issue

4

Pages

446-465

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between encounters with the criminal justice system and psychological well-being in a large U.S. sample. This project builds upon previous research about the negative outcomes tied to such encounters by examining potential long term negative effects on people’s subjective well-being and sense of meaning and purpose in life. Panel study participants indicated their lifetime exposure to the criminal justice system, and then, about two years later, indicated their current subjective well-being and sense of meaning and purpose in life. Our findings reveal that the number of past police arrests is associated with reductions in well-being, with the first arrest showing the strongest effect. When controlling for number of previous arrests, no other aspect of exposure to the criminal justice system (e.g., the presence of a criminal conviction, amount of time spent detained) was significantly related to well-being. Race and gender predict encounters with the criminal justice system, but the relation to well-being remains consistent across demographics. Given the importance of meaning and life purpose as a protective factor against trauma and stress, it is vital to understand how first encounters with the criminal justice system, in particular, are related to people’s sense of purpose and meaning.

Rights

© The Authors 2025

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original authors and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

Data Availability

Article states: "Due to the nature of the research, and due to ethical and legal concerns, the supporting data are not available. Data were accessed with specific permission from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (https://psidonline.isr.umich.edu/)."

Original Publication Citation

Sanders, C. A., & King, L. A. (2025). The downstream well-being effect of encounters with the U.S. criminal justice system. Social Justice Research, 38(4), 446-465. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-025-00465-1

ORCID

0000-0001-9777-4368 (Sanders), 0000-0002-3753-2575 (King)

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