Surveillance and System Avoidance: Criminal Justice Contact and Institutional Attachment

Sarah Brayne, Princeton University

There has been a dramatic increase in the degree and scope of criminal justice surveillance in the United States over the past four decades. Recent qualitative research suggests that the rise in surveillance may be met with a concomitant increase in efforts to evade it. However, to date there has been no quantitative empirical test of this theory. In this paper, I introduce the concept of “system avoidance,” whereby individuals who have had contact with the criminal justice system avoid “surveilling institutions” that keep formal records. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (n=15,170), I find that individuals who have been stopped by police, arrested, convicted, or incarcerated are more likely to avoid surveilling institutions such as hospitals, banks, schools, and employment than their counterparts that have not had contact with the criminal justice system, net of socio-demographic and behavioral characteristics.