Why Children With Parents in Prison Are Especially Burdened

While mass in-car-cer-a-tion in Amer-ica came to dom-in-ate the do-mest-ic polit-ic-al and policy de-bate this year, the im-pact of im-prisoned par-ents on chil-dren has largely re-mained a side is-sue.

Two new re-ports make a strong case for cen-ter-ing chil-dren and fam-il-ies more squarely in the fore-ground of dis-cus-sions on crim-in-al justice—and with-in evolving le-gis-lat-ive and policy changes af-fect-ing in-car-cer-a-tion.

“Dis-cus-sions of U.S. cor-rec-tions policy do not of-ten con-sider chil-dren,” write P. Mae Cooper and Dav-id Murph-ey, re-search-ers at Child Trends and au-thors of a com-pre-hens-ive study on youth and chil-dren of im-prisoned adults.

“We need ef-fect-ive pro-grams to mit-ig-ate the harm as-so-ci-ated with hav-ing an in-car-cer-ated par-ent. Al-though in-pris-on pro-grams fo-cus-ing on par-ent-ing skills are com-mon, few are fo-cused on meet-ing the needs of chil-dren dir-ectly dur-ing the time par-ents are in pris-on,” Cooper and Murph-ey write.  

Some 5 mil-lion chil-dren, or roughly 7 per-cent of all chil-dren liv-ing in the U.S., have a par-ent who is cur-rently or was pre-vi-ously in-car-cer-ated, ac-cord-ing to the study, which was pub-lished in Oc-to-ber 2015 and drew from Na-tion-al Sur-veys of Chil-dren’s Health dat-ing to 2007.

Find-ings in the Child Trends study are echoed in a sim-il-ar re-port pub-lished Dec. 10 by the Cen-ter for Amer-ic-an Pro-gress, a pro-gress-ive polit-ic-al think tank in Wash-ing-ton. CAP re-search-ers Re-becca Val-las, Melissa Boteach, Rachel West, and Jack-ie Odum found that between 33 mil-lion and 36.5 mil-lion chil-dren—nearly half the total pop-u-la-tion of U.S. chil-dren—have at least one par-ent who has a crim-in-al re-cord.

Real-world im-plic-a-tions for the chil-dren of in-car-cer-ated par-ents in-clude a range of po-ten-tial neg-at-ive ef-fects, lead-ing au-thors of the Child Trends study to call for poli-cy-makers and law-makers to step up fund-ing and pro-grams aimed at “re-du-cing the trauma and stigma these chil-dren ex-per-i-ence, im-prov-ing com-mu-nic-a-tions between the child and the in-car-cer-ated par-ent, and mak-ing vis-its with the in-car-cer-ated par-ent more child-friendly.”

And Val-las, dir-ect-or of policy for the Poverty to Prosper-ity Pro-gram at CAP and lead au-thor of the re-port on par-ents in the crim-in-al-justice sys-tem, said, “Be-cause these chal-lenges af-fect such a large share of our na-tion’s chil-dren, we ig-nore these in-tergen-er-a-tion-al con-sequences at our per-il.”

What’s at Stake

While re-search-ers at Child Trends ac-know-ledge that there are few lon-git-ud-in-al stud-ies of the long-term im-pact of par-ent-al in-car-cer-a-tion on chil-dren, Cooper and Murph-ey’s ana-lys-is of ex-ist-ing data shows an alarm-ing col-lec-tion of “ad-verse child-hood ex-per-i-ences (ACEs),” also known as im-me-di-ate neg-at-ive out-comes, af-fect-ing chil-dren with in-car-cer-ated par-ents. The list of such ACEs in-cludes “in-creased risk for trauma, or tox-ic stress, par-tic-u-larly when they are cu-mu-lat-ive,” Cooper and Murph-ey write.  

In ad-di-tion, the Child Trends re-search-ers cite re-lated in-dic-at-ors that have po-ten-tial long-term neg-at-ive im-pacts for chil-dren. These in-dic-at-ors are fre-quently present in house-holds where a par-ent is or has been in-car-cer-ated, and they render chil-dren vul-ner-able to fal-lout from a dy-nam-ic that psy-cho-lo-gists call “loss of an at-tach-ment fig-ure.” The re-port found that:

• More than half had lived with someone who had a sub-stance-ab-use prob-lem, com-pared with few-er than 10 per-cent of chil-dren with no par-ent-al in-car-cer-a-tion.
• Nearly three in five had ex-per-i-enced par-ent-al di-vorce or sep-ar-a-tion, com-pared with one in five chil-dren without par-ent-al in-car-cer-a-tion.
• More than one-third had wit-nessed vi-ol-ence between their par-ents or guard-i-ans, and one-third had wit-nessed or ex-per-i-enced vi-ol-ence in their neigh-bor-hoods. Less than 10 per-cent of those without an in-car-cer-ated par-ent had ex-per-i-enced either one.
• More than one in four had lived with someone who was men-tally ill or sui-cid-al, and nearly one in 10 had ex-per-i-enced the death of a par-ent.

The ma-jor takeaway is that dir-ect in-ter-ven-tions are needed to help keep in-car-cer-ated par-ents con-nec-ted in pos-it-ive ways with their chil-dren, and to have pro-grams that help fam-il-ies, schools, and neigh-bor-hoods to cope.

Without such pro-grams—in-clud-ing com-munity- and edu-cat-or-aware-ness train-ing de-signed to re-duce shame and stigma sur-round-ing in-car-cer-ated par-ents—a tox-ic cycle of crisis can de-vel-op, which could later lead to in-car-cer-a-tion for the child.

For fam-il-ies of lim-ited eco-nom-ic means, in par-tic-u-lar black and Latino fam-il-ies, op-tions for sup-port-ing chil-dren with im-prisoned par-ents can be scarce. Murph-ey and Cooper es-tim-ate that black chil-dren, poor chil-dren, and chil-dren of par-ents with “little edu-ca-tion” are dis-pro-por-tion-ately rep-res-en-ted among the total pop-u-la-tion of chil-dren of in-car-cer-ated par-ents.

The Scramble for Solu-tions

To date, the fed-er-al re-sponse to this as-pect of Amer-ica’s mass-in-car-cer-a-tion ma-chinery has been scat-ter-shot. Withmore than 2 mil-lion men and wo-men locked up in jails and pris-ons na-tion-wide—and with blacks and Lati-nos com-pris-ing a ma-jor-ity—the U.S is the most heav-ily in-car-cer-ated coun-try in the de-veloped world. Ana-lyses of im-pact to com-munit-ies, mu-ni-cip-al-it-ies, and states has fo-cused primar-ily on fin-an-cial costs, which have in-creased dra-mat-ic-ally since the 1980s. 

Yet, with the ex-cep-tion of the Second Chance Act—a bill in-tro-duced in 2007 un-der Pres-id-ent George W. Bush that dir-ec-ted the Fed-er-al Bur-eau of Pris-ons to al-low “aging pris-on-ers” un-der cer-tain cir-cum-stances to re-quest trans-fers to home con-fine-ment, and re-ceive grants to aid reentry—no sig-ni-fic-ant le-gis-la-tion ad-dress-ing the so-cioeco-nom-ic status of cur-rent or former pris-on-ers and their fam-ily-mem-bers has emerged.

The Second Chance Reau-thor-iz-a-tion Act, which will re-new and up-date the 2007 bill, was sponsored by Re-pub-lic-an Sen. Rob Port-man of Ohio last sum-mer and is await-ing a vote. Its fo-cus now must in-clude at-ten-tion to fam-ily needs, in par-tic-u-lar chil-dren, in the con-text of in-mates and the re-cently-re-leased, ac-cord-ing to the bill’s spon-sor.

“About 95 per-cent of the people in our pris-ons will even-tu-ally re-turn to so-ci-ety. It is in all of our in-terests to give these in-di-vidu-als a second chance,” Port-man and Demo-crat-ic Rep. Danny Dav-is of Illinois ar-gued in a re-cent op-ed. Dav-is sponsored the 2007 bill. “That may mean help-ing someone break a drug habit, ac-quire needed skills or deal with a men-tal health is-sue to hold a job, sup-port a fam-ily and pay taxes. The spouses, chil-dren and ex-ten-ded fam-ily of ex-of-fend-ers de-serve a second chance and if re-entry pro-grams are suc-cess-ful, our com-munit-ies will be safer, and tax-pay-ers will save mil-lions of dol-lars an-nu-ally,” wrote Port-man and Dav-is.

In 2013, the De-part-ment of Health and Hu-man Ser-vices’s Ad-min-is-tra-tion for Chil-dren and Fam-il-ies con-vened the Chil-dren of In-car-cer-ated Par-ents’ Work-ing Group. The group, led by the White House Do-mest-ic Policy Coun-cil, is com-posed of rep-res-ent-at-ives from HHS and the de-part-ments of Justice, Hous-ing and Urb-an De-vel-op-ment, Ag-ri-cul-ture, and Edu-ca-tion, as well as the So-cial Se-cur-ity Ad-min-is-tra-tion. It pro-duced a solu-tions-ori-ented tool kit that was dis-trib-uted to pris-on bur-eaus, wel-fare agen-cies, and res-id-en-tial reentry cen-ters.

Thus, dur-ing the past 20 years, a patch-work of pub-lic and private sup-port sys-tems have de-veloped to fill the space left by the dearth of dir-ect fed-er-al fund-ing and sup-port for chil-dren who have in-car-cer-ated par-ents. The An-nie E. Ca-sey Found-a-tion (a Next Amer-ica spon-sor), de-veloped a suite of re-sources for fun-ders and com-munity and char-it-able or-gan-iz-a-tions de-signed to “pre-serve the par-ent-child con-nec-tion” dur-ing par-ent-al in-car-cer-a-tion, in-clud-ing lit-er-acy pro-grams, ment-or-ing and coun-sel-ing for chil-dren, and par-ent-child vis-it-ing pro-grams.

Some states, too, have moun-ted pro-grams and ser-vices to ad-dress the chal-lenge of keep-ing chil-dren and in-car-cer-ated par-ents con-nec-ted. In Ore-gon, the state De-part-ment of Cor-rec-tion over-sees the Chil-dren of In-car-cer-ated Par-ents Pro-ject, a 12-year-old pub-lic-private ini-ti-at-ive that in-cludes Head Start pro-grams, men-tal-health ser-vices, and edu-ca-tion-al op-por-tun-it-ies.

In Wash-ing-ton, Hope House, a non-profit fo-cus-ing on help-ing in-car-cer-ated par-ents stay con-nec-ted with their chil-dren, of-fers sum-mer-camp op-por-tun-it-ies, as well as a re-cor-ded-books pro-gram. Ex-ec-ut-ive Dir-ect-or Car-ol Fen-nelly, who foun-ded Hope House in 1998 and its sum-mer camp a few years later, said that while she’s op-tim-ist-ic in gen-er-al about the re-cent at-ten-tion from politi-cians and poli-cy-makers to the lar-ger is-sue of end-ing mass in-car-cer-a-tion, she has con-cerns that the status of chil-dren and fam-il-ies of the im-prisoned is not re-ceiv-ing cru-cial dir-ect sup-port.

Most ur-gently needed, in Fen-nelly’s es-tim-a-tion, are edu-ca-tion-al aware-ness pro-grams de-signed to elim-in-ate or lessen the shame and stigma ex-per-i-enced by chil-dren of in-car-cer-ated par-ents. “We have had chil-dren in our pro-grams who shared with me that one of the hard-est parts of what they face is judg-ment from teach-ers, peers, and oth-ers in their com-munit-ies,” Fen-nelly said.   

“Some-times people aren’t even aware that they re-act neg-at-ively once they first learn that a stu-dent has a par-ent be-hind bars. But that child cer-tainly can hear it and feel it.”

Amy Alexander, Contributor

National Journal