As we have noted, the gender of the incarcerated parent is a major determinant of the type of alternative care arrangement. Eleven papers were commissioned by leading experts to survey the state of knowledge on the dynamics of incarceration and reentry as seen from the perspectives of child, parent and community. Thus, when a parent is incarcerated, it is more likely that children will experience separation from mother than separation from father. But its not knowing what's happening to my son that hurts most" (Baunach, 1988, p. 121, cited in Garcia Coll et al., 1998). First, incarceration is often preceded by a period of familial instability, poverty, child abuse or neglect, marital discord and conflict, or father absence. In view of the clear links between the quality of the marital relationship and child outcomes  either directly or indirectly through parenting  it is critical that more effort be devoted to this form of intervention (Grych & Fincham, 2000). Inmate fathers in the control group did not show any significant changes. This indicates that the number of children who have incarcerated parents is continuing to increase, resulting in many children growing up without a parent or parents. Children, as well as their parents face a range of problems challenges and opportunities when the parent and child are reunited after the incarceration is over. Jasmine Lewis is a Master of Social Work (MSW) student at the Howard University School of Social Work. Gender differences are again evident. Shipping Information & Rates It is also critical to consider whether the child is living with the parent at the time of incarceration, whether a single or two-parent household is involved, and, in the case of a two-parent household, which parent is incarcerated. Moreover, there are problems with kinship arrangements as well. Figure 1. It is a concern for us as well. Observation of children in a variety of contexts (home, school, playground) with a variety of interactive partners (parents, substitute caregivers, siblings, peers) would begin to provide a solid descriptive data base. According to this perspective, risks often co-occur and are best understood not as single events, but as sets or combinations of events. Individual children respond to risks in a variety of ways. There are a number of interpretative problems that merit elaboration. In the closing section we outline a series of issues, both research and policy issues, that need to be addressed if we are able to make serious progress in understanding the issue of parental incarceration. The second set of protective factors is found in a supportive family environment. A variety of theoretical perspectives are relevant to this topic and can usefully provide guidelines for the design of future research, intervention, and policy. In most cases, mothers of newborn infants are permitted only a few days of contact before they must relinquish their infant and return to prison. These disparities in parenting responsibilities mirror the larger picture in our society whereby mothers assume the largest share of parenting in intact families (Coltrane, 1996; Parke, 1996; 2002) and post-divorce families (Hetherington & Kelley, 2001). For imprisoned mothers, one of the greatest punishments incarceration carries with it is separation from their children. These risks interact and are mediated in a variety of complex ways, just as in the case of other transitions such as divorce and remarriage or job loss (Conger & Elder, 1994; Hetherington, Bridges, & Insabella, 1998). They also experienced higher overall satisfaction with their parenting. al. Sack et al. According to Landreth and Lobaugh, filial therapy training teaches parents basic child-centered play therapy skills and helps them learn how to create an accepting environment in which their children feel safe enough to express and explore their thoughts and feelings. The process of shifting the focus of intimate relationships from this caregiver to a long-absent, returning parent may be disruptive for the child and present another stressful transition that further undermines the child's adjustment. As Cowan et al. No single theoretical perspective is sufficient to encompass the complexity of the problem of parental incarceration. Some aim to increase contact between incarcerated parents and their children; some attempt to improve the structure of visits and facilitate family interactions; others seek to improve parenting skills of incarcerated parents; still others have the goal of easing the inmate parents' reentry into society and the parental role by offering post-incarceration training, job placement services, and housing assistance. In addition, Crnic, Greenberg, Ragozin, Robinson, and Basham (1983) reported that mothers with higher levels of informal social support were more responsive and affectionate with their infants. Similarly in a much larger study carried out in England, Morris (1965) reported that 38% of the families used partial or total deception in explaining a parent's incarceration to the children. This theory serves as a framework to aid in understanding the importance of the development of the parent-infant or parent-child relationship. At a 6-month follow up, only 5% of subjects were still residing at their pre-arrest residence. Another important issue is who looks after the children when parents are incarcerated. As in the studies of interventions with incarcerated mothers, measures of the impact of the parental intervention on the children were not collected. In addition, goals and timing of interventions vary. Boys are more likely to exhibit externalizing behavior problems, while girls are more likely to display internalizing problems (Cowan et al., 1994; Cummings, Davies, & Campbell, 2000). research on children of incarcerated parents varies with respect to quality, but the most rigorous work confirms that parental incarceration is a new and consequential source of harm for an already-vulnerable group of children. When children are present at the arrest of their parent, the loss of separation can be compounded by powerlessness, and violence. As Hairston (1991) found in a survey of prison policies and practices, correctional institutions are not generally supportive of inmate-family relationships or family-oriented services. This work underscores the need to assess the quality of children's attachment relationships with alternative caregivers such as grandparents when the parent is unavailable due to incarceration. Reader®, Other Early Childhood Interventions and Related Topics, Incarcerated Parents and Re-Entry of Ex-Offenders. The most important predictor of how well the child will adjust to the immediate separation is the quality of the parent-child relationship. Effects of Parental Incarceration on Young Children, Ross D. Parke University of California, Riverside, K. Alison Clarke-Stewart University of California, Irvine, [ Project Home Page | List of Conference Papers ]. Our assumption that these programs will, in fact, benefit children of incarcerated parents as well as parents themselves remains an untested assumption. While parental incarceration’s effects vary by child, the evidence available points to potential behavioral, emotional and attachment challenges to healthy development. According to Turney … Creating and maintaining healthy relationships is a huge part of childhood and especially adulthood. When a parent is incarcerated, the child’s remaining caregivers often don’t know if or how they should explain the parent’s absence to the child. One problem is the high prevalence of mental impairment among incarcerated parents and the concomitant difficulty these parents have with reading. This design would be a step toward disentangling the impact of incarceration per se from the impact of preexisting family conditions on children's subsequent adjustment. Many children of incarcerated parents exhibit symptoms Impact of Parental Incarceration Adapted from Responding to Children Unfortunately, only an incomplete picture of the impact of the initial arrest on children is available. A variety of mechanisms, including conjugal visits, furloughs, and family and marital counseling, have all been suggested as ways of strengthening the marital relationship. Only 13% of state inmate parents reported any college education, but 25% of federal inmate parents reported some college education. Some suffer permanent developmental disruptions and delays. Parental incarceration and the disruption of family relationships can produce negative outcomes for children, including poverty, poor academic performance, aggression, depression, delinquency, and substance abuse. Step 1: Understanding and Awareness. Moreover, even when children do visit, they do not visit often. Other problems include child-unfriendly visiting rooms, lack of privacy, and increased anxiety on the part of the visiting child (Bloom & Steinhart, 1993; Simon & Landes, 1991). found, families of inmates exhibit frequent changes in roles and relationships. According to Turney and Goodsell (2018): “children with incarcerated parents, and particularly those with incarcerated fathers, have trouble progressing through school” (p. 151). As detailed by Jeffries (this volume), the impact of parental incarceration on children does not end with the release of the parent. As Nolen-Hoeksema and Larson (1999) argue, children need honest, factual information, and they need to have their experience validated. As Young and Smith (2000) note, correctional policies regarding visitation and phone use make it difficult for mothers to stay in touch with their children. There is an extensive literature that suggests that the quality of family ties within the extended family network is related to mothers' more positive parenting attitudes and behavior (Cochran & Brassard, 1979; Cochran, 1995). Children of incarcerated parents are directly impacted by their parents’ incarceration and face several difficulties throughout their lifetime. Communication skills increased in all parents, and child management skills increased in two of the three families in the program, as evidenced by observations of parent-child interactions in the home. For example, whereas child characteristics may play a similar role during separation and reunion, the quality of caregiving processes (e.g., the child's relationship with the alternative caregiver) may play a protective role during parental incarceration but present a risk to successful reunion with the incarcerated parent after the separation is over. Punishing the innocent: Children of incarcerated and detained parents. Transience of inmates after release and of partners and children during incarceration pose additional problem for follow-up research. Struggling with school impacts other parts of a child’s life and is a strong indicator in whether a child may be at risk for incarceration. The problem of parental incarceration is continuing to grow, and research surrounding this topic should continue to grow as well so that we can find better ways to address the problem. As expected, in both state and federal prisons, there are more African American parents (47% and 49% in state and federal prisons respectively) than either Hispanic parents (19% and 30%) or white non-Hispanic parents (29% and 22%). sense of safety, security, and loyalty to a parent. In addition, rules about who is eligible to visit, the number of visitors allowed at one time, appropriate behavior during the visit, lack of privacy, harsh treatment of visitors by correctional staff, and the physical layout of the visiting room often deter family members and caregivers from coming. The direct impact of parental offending and incarceration and what long term implications it may have on children has prompted studies and research that vary in conclusion. Parental incarceration impacts major parts of a child’s life and has a lifelong impact. It is critical that intervention materials be written and administered at an appropriate level. Others argue that the emotional distress of children is exacerbated by the unwillingness of family, friends or caregivers to discuss their parent's incarceration (Snyder-Joy & Carlo, 1998). In spite of the problems associated with child visitation of incarcerated parents noted earlier, many parents feel that, on balance, visits are worthwhile. Based on interviews with 31 mothers and 27 waiting-list control mothers, Snyder-Joy and Carlo found that program mothers had more frequent contact with their children and spent more time discussing issues of importance to them, such as their behavior and feelings. Children in middle childhood who are in school at the time of the arrest may return to an empty residence and be unaware of the arrest of their mother (Fishman, 1983). There were significant improvements for women in the intervention group in comparison with the control group. In 1991, 57% of prisoners had minor children; in 2000, 56% were in the same situation. These conditions, in part, flow from cultural and institutional beliefs that incarcerated individuals, including parents, do not deserve privileges such as family visitation. Not surprisingly, in view of their unequal rates of incarceration, the parents' ethnicity matters, too. To date, little is known about either the short-term consequences of this process of reestablishment of ties with an absent parent or the long-term effect on the child's well-being. Another predictor or how well the child adjusts to parental incarceration is likely to be the quality of relationships with the extended family and non-family informal social networks This support is especially relevant when the father is incarcerated and leaves the mother to cope as a single parent. Children in the intervention group increased in self-esteem, while control children showed a slight decrease in self-esteem over the 6-week period (effect size = .57). Jose-Kampfner (1995) interviewed 30 children who witnessed their mother's arrest and reported that these children suffered nightmares and flashbacks to the arrest incident. By educating the wider community about the needs of incarcerated parents, their children, and their families, more humane policies may emerge and the difficulties faced by these individuals will be better appreciated. In the current context, how parents and their children adjust to the parent's incarceration will vary greatly depending on the age of the parent as well as the developmental level of the child. placed on a child after a parental arrest. Cumulative risk models.Cumulative risk models A closely related theoretical perspective with clear relevance to the issue of the effects of incarceration on children is the cumulative risk perspective (Rutter, 1987; Sameroff et al., 1998). Other variables serve as moderators. In many families, practical constraints, such as conflicting schedules and long distances between home and prison, limit children's participation in such programs. Only when we have begun to identify these processes will we be positioned to design meaningful theory and data-based interventions. Explore, If you have a story to tell, knowledge to share, or a perspective to offer — welcome home. Other events also transpire at the time of incarceration that could account for some of the negative effects on children. In addition, the option to maintain ties with multiple caregivers  the parent and the substitute caregiver  after the reentry of the incarcerated parent is probably a further determinant of child adjustment. Children suffer stigma when a parent is incarcerated. In a promising but extremely small-scale demonstration, Marsh (1983) provided parent education aimed at improving communication and child management skills to couples in which the father was incarcerated. These fathers scored significantly lower than control fathers on parenting stress and on perceptions of problem behavior in their children. Smart justice solutions, curated by social work scholars. This failure to disclose has been variously termed the "conspiracy of silence" (Jose-Kampfner, 1995) or "forced silence" (Johnson, 1995). During the time of my brother’s father’s incarceration, he continued to live with our mom and another brother. The behaviors mentioned can lead to a life of difficulties that can include creating and maintaining a healthy social system. It also suggests that children who "lose" their relationship with an incarcerated parent can be helped by forming or maintaining a secure attachment relationship with another caregiver. In comparison to fathers in a control group, the fathers in the 10-week training program scored significantly higher on both their acceptance of their children and their empathic behavior toward their children. facebook share - The Impact of Parental Incarceration on Child Development And Sister Tesa’s Bold Idea -Video As Johnson (1995, p. 74) notes "There may be a very good reason for such a forced silence; family jobs, welfare payments, child custody, and even housing may be jeopardized when others become aware of the parents' whereabouts. Two other studies reported significant improvements in parenting as a result of educational interventions, but lacked comparison groups and therefore are difficult to interpret. Among the younger children (6-8 years old) in the Sack et al. Others show sleeper effects; they appear to cope well initially, but exhibit problems later in development. Most programs have focused on the incarcerated parent and given less attention to the needs of either the non-incarcerated partner or the couple. While my brother was incarcerated his children lived with their mother. report that 62% of inmate participants in their study moved at least once in the previous year. Deception took a variety of forms, from total lies to strong shading of the truth, in which prison was referred to as an army camp, a hospital or a school. Growing up with either or both parents incarcerated negatively impacts children, however maternal and paternal incarceration impact children differently. As detailed by Jeffries (this volume), the impact of parental incarceration on children does not end with the release of the parent. Women in both groups completed a 36-item Child Management Behavior Survey, which assessed knowledge about child development and child behavior management techniques before and after either the educational intervention or, in the case of the comparison group, on two occasions without an intervening educational program. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. The intervention involved 15 hours of instruction over a 10-week period. We have already reviewed "Girl Scouts Beyond Bars," a program that includes not only visitation opportunities but non-prison group activities as well. Thus, many children are deprived of their right to reunite with their mother. In light of the literature on children's coping (Ayers, Sandler, West, & Roosa, 1996; Compas, 1987), which suggests that uncertainty and lack of information undermines children's ability to cope, it is not surprising that children who are uninformed about their parent's incarceration are more anxious and fearful (Johnson, 1995). A Shared Sentence offers commonsense proposals to address the increased poverty and stress that children of incarcerated parents experience. Unfortunately, although such programs exist, information about which approaches - if any  are most effective is limited. The social welfare system needs to be involved with the family members of incarcerated parents to provide coordination between their services and the needs of the imprisoned parent (visitation, reentry services), and, in turn, these activities need to be coordinated with the criminal justice system, including prison and later parole systems. The importance of focusing on the family unit stems from claims that post-release success is higher among inmates who have maintained family ties during incarceration (Clements, 1986; Hairston, 1987). Support for the effectiveness of parent education for inmate fathers comes from one recent study by Wilezck and Markstrom (1999). The mother's perceptions of the quality of their relationships with their children, however, were not different in the two groups. It is highly unlikely for a child to be successful if their physical and mental health is not effectively being managed. According to Johnson (1991), one in five children is present at the time of the arrest and witnesses the mother being taken away by authorities. Study components include the effects on children of their parents' arrest, trial, jail time, and return home, alongside the role of attachment relations, reduced quality of child care, social and economic strain resulting from reduced income, changes in discipline, social learning, and stigma among peers. European countries offer a variety of approaches to co-detention that avoid these problems. Physical health is a part of a child’s life that is negatively impacted by parental incarceration as well. Because the vast majority of offenses committed by women are relatively minor and non-violent (e.g., drugs, prostitution), alternatives to regular incarceration merit more consideration (Jaffe et al., 1997). In fact, only half of the inmate parents in either state (43%) or federal prison (57%) lived with their children at the time of admission to prison. As one incarcerated mother put it, "The main advantage of the visits are tightening up the relationship, watching your children grow, how you've changed, being able to love one another" (Datesman & Cales, 1983, p. 147, cited by Bloch & Potthast, 1998). In light of the evidence that children who begin a deviant career path early in childhood are more likely to develop stable, serious criminal patterns (Moffitt, 1993; Patterson et al., 1989), it is particularly important that intervention begin in childhood to try to avoid a deviant trajectory. Only 23% of state inmate parents and 36% of federal inmate parents were married. The ability of alternative caregivers to cope adequately and to avoid depression will affect the child indirectly through caregiving processes. Our argument is that static and cross-sectional slices out of the lives of parent and children yield a misleading portrait of how risk and protective factors operate across time to affect children's adjustment to parental incarceration. A transactional model of the predictors of children's adjustment following parental incarceration and reunion (after Conger & Elder, 1994; Hetherington et al., 1998). Re-location and placement with alternative caregivers are both major disruptions in the children's lives, which past research has shown to be detrimental to children (Rutter, 1987). (1998) argue, programs that focus on both partners in a relationship are often more effective than focusing on only one member of the dyad. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Direct assessment of children is needed, as much of the literature relies on potentially-biased parental reports (Meyers et al., 1999). These alternatives include house arrest, half-way houses where mother and children reside, and day programs in which mothers attend programs in a correctional institution during the day but are permitted to return home at night. (1999) note, after the mother's is released, she comes home to an infant or young child with whom she has not developed an emotional bond and who is not attached to her, with the likely result that the children will have emotional and behavioral problems. Moreover, the nature of the particular risk may be less critical than the number of risks that the child encounters. compared shifts in self-esteem for children in the intervention group with children in a waiting-list control group. After an attachment has developed, separation from the parent can generate a set of adverse emotional reactions from sadness to anger, which, in turn, will interfere with the optimal development of the child (Sroufe, 1988). A parent’s incarceration may improve children’s lives if, for example, the parent is aggressive or violent. A small number of women (6%, U.S. Department of Justice, 1994) are pregnant at the time of their incarceration, but few prisons in the United States permit mother to keep their infants with them during incarceration (Gabel & Girard, 1995). Maternal incarceration also impacts children differently because mothers are the ones who give birth to the children. Paternal incarceration, coupled with increased institutional surveillance, leads to lower levels of parental involvement in children’s schooling. Harrison did measure children's perceptions of their own self-worth in this study and found no differences between children of fathers in the experimental and control groups. This family instability both during and after incarceration presents serious problems for any longitudinal research design. Moreover, daughters' self-esteem was enhanced, new friendships with peers were formed, and problems associated with separation were lessened. Another form of conjoint family intervention when one parent is incarcerated involves the provision of services to all family members. These interventions can take a variety of forms, including individual counseling or therapy, family therapy, or group therapy, located in schools, clinics, or prisons. Features of these programs include special play areas for parents and children, extended visits, more flexible scheduling, and special housing of children in the institution (Clement, 1993). The Springer study does suggest that sons and daughters of incarcerated parents can benefit from a time-limited group intervention; however, the small sample size (N = 10 across both experimental and control groups) and the restriction of the sample to Hispanic children limits the generality of their results. For example, Howes and Hamilton (1993) found that children with an insecure attachment with mother but a secure attachment to a day-care provider tended to be more socially competent than insecurely attached children who had not formed a strong compensatory relationship outside the family. Over the last several decades, there are a number of secular changes that could affect families' reactions to incarceration. A transactional model of risks and supports associated with parental incarceration is presented in Figure 1. Another example of a parent-child visitation program is "The Girl Scouts Beyond Bars Program" (GSBB; Bloch & Potthast, 1998). Another promising approach to intervening directly with the children of incarcerated parents can be found in the Youth Advisory Program. As a result, there is little opportunity for the mother to develop a bond to the baby or for the baby to become familiar with the mother and form an attachment to her  a critical developmental task for both mothers and infants. Unfortunately, there has been no formal evaluation of this effort. In 1991, there were 452,500 parents in state and federal prisons, with 936,500 minor children. Criminal Justice Ethics, 30, 267–287. Group treatment can address the need for social support and provide a structured setting for expression of mothers' concerns (Springer et al., 2000). Only by doing so will we be able to trace the various pathways followed by different children and begin to describe the nature of the changes that affect the child's functioning. The relative success of this approach in promoting positive change in the children stems, in part, from the fact that both fathers and their children were participants in the program, not just fathers alone. Although the reunion process is a complex one, it is unclear whether being in permanent foster care is preferable, especially in light of the relative instability of foster-home placements (Beckerman, 1998; Genty, 1998). Young and Smith (2000) cite a range of challenges faced by grandparents raising grandchildren, including emotional, physical, and financial difficulties, which, in turn, may undermine their effectiveness as substitute caregivers.
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