Parenthood Matters: The Institutional Surveillance of U.S. Latinos by Citizenship and Parental Status

Scholarship on surveillance and system avoidance posits that populations worried about state punishment are less likely to engage with mainstream societal institutions whose formal records the police can use to monitor their behavior. Less considered in this scholarship is whether and how parenthood mediates rates of involvement in these so-called surveilling institutions among populations sharing a sanctionable status. This chapter examines this dynamic among Latinos in the United States who are disproportionately affected by or targeted for immigration enforcement. I draw on the American Time Use Survey (2003-2018) to estimate Latino U.S.-born citizens’, naturalized citizens’, and noncitizens’ reported rates of involvement in surveilling institutions by parental status. Results from logistic regression models illuminate the mediating role of parenthood for understanding surveillance and system avoidance among U.S. Latinos. Although parents across citizenship statuses report less involvement in surveilling institutions on their own behalf relative to similarly-situated non-parents, accounting for parents’ institutional involvement on behalf of their children explains most differences. There is nonetheless patterned variation in parents and non-parents’ reported rates of involvement in specific surveilling institutions by citizenship status. I discuss implications for whether and how institutional surveillance is related to inequality. Specifically, I theorize how having children patterns the institutional surveillance parents and non-parents sharing a sanctionable status endure each day.