To date, research concerning children affected by parental incarceration has focused primarily on children that are eighteen years of age and younger. The effects of parental incarceration on adults that are eighteen years of age and older has remained unexamined. The purpose of this exploratory study is to explore the outcomes of young adult college students that have been affected by parental incarceration. A sample of 345 undergraduate college students was surveyed at a sizeable University in the southeastern region of the United States to create a demographic and behavioral profile of college students affected by parental incarceration. It was hypothesized that college students affected by parental incarceration will have lower institutional grade point averages (GPA), higher accounts of criminal involvement, higher likelihoods of substance abuse, and lower levels of self-control than college students that have not been affected by parental incarceration. Results indicated that, the outcomes of college students affected by parental incarceration were comparable to college students not affected by parental incarceration.

To date, research concerning children affected by parental incarceration has focused primarily on children that are eighteen years of age and younger. The effects of parental incarceration on adults that are eighteen years of age and older has remained unexamined. The purpose of this exploratory study is to explore the outcomes of young adult college students that have been affected by parental incarceration. A sample of 345 undergraduate college students was surveyed at a sizeable University in the southeastern region of the United States to create a demographic and behavioral profile of college students affected by parental incarceration. It was hypothesized that college students affected by parental incarceration will have lower institutional grade point averages (GPA), higher accounts of criminal involvement, higher likelihoods of substance abuse, and lower levels of self-control than college students that have not been affected by parental incarceration. Results indicated that, the outcomes of college students affected by parental incarceration were comparable to college students not affected by parental incarceration.

A conviction is a ramification that extends beyond the correctional facility. An extensive amount of research has explored the barriers the justice-impacted experience once they are released from prison. One of the most immediate and impactful barriers is their ability to secure employment, due to it being quintessential in reducing their likelihood to recidivate and engage in illegal activity post-release. While much research has specifically focused on former prisoners’ ability to secure employment post-release, very limited researched exists that examines how convicted offense impacts employment. Utilizing the Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative (SVORI) multi-site impact evaluation as its secondary dataset, the present study aimed to explore the impact violent offenses (non-sex), sex offenses, white-collar offenses, property offenses, drug offenses, and confounding sociodemographic factors have on securing employment three months post-incarceration. This study hypothesized there is a significant association between employment status and convicted offenses/convicted offense types among the justice-impacted, even when accounting for confounding sociodemographic factors. Through binary logistic regression analysis and multiple imputations, the results from the study reveal statistical significance for the relationship between convicted offenses (assault, car theft, drug dealing, drug possession, and forgery), convicted offense types (drug and white-collar), and confounding sociodemographic factors (age, education, and race) with employment 3 months post-incarceration. It is hoped these results reveal how stifling deficits are to securing employment for the justice-impacted, and the need for further policy and programming application to decrease these challenges.

The mid-1990s brought sex offenders to the forefront of policy issues due to several highly publicized cases of abduction, sexual assault, and murder involving children. Following these cases, a number of sex offender management policies were passed to quell public concern over the safety of children due to sex offenders. Most notably, these new sex offender management policies mandated the creation of publicly available registries of sex offenders and enacted residence restrictions that forbid sex offenders from residing within certain distances from areas where children commonly congregate. Although current sex offender management policies have been revealed to be largely ineffective in reducing sex offender recidivism and also create a number of collateral consequences for the successful reintegration of sex offenders back into the community, the public has been found to be largely in support of these policies and believe in their effectiveness. The available literature examining the perceptions of professionals toward sex offender management policies, however, has shown mixed support depending upon the specific profession of the sample. Utilizing a sample (n=248) gathered from two professional organizations, this study aimed to explore and compare the perceptions of clinical specialists and non-clinical professionals in three areas: Support for current sex offender management policies, belief in collateral consequences that sex offenders may face due to these policies, and acceptability of collateral consequences as by-products of the current policies. Bivariate analyses revealed significant differences between the professionals groups in all three of the above areas. Given the significant bivariate findings, ordinary least squares regression was conducted to examine the consistency of profession as a significant predictor of the attitudes of the professionals while considering competing variables. Against a number of control variables, profession remained a significant predictor of support for sex offender management policies and belief in collateral consequences involving residence restrictions, however, profession was not a significant predictor of acceptability of collateral consequences. Several other factors, including punishment philosophy and belief in the cause of sex offending, emerged throughout the multivariate analyses as having a significant influence on the perceptions of the professionals.

Traditionally, emphases in the mass media coverage of almost all crimes have been placed on the alleged offender and the victim (and on occasion, their families). As a result, the families of offenders have been either largely ignored or presented unfairly even though their lives have also been devastatingly impacted by the media coverage of their loved one. While scholars have explored the impacts of offending on offenders’ relatives, this exploratory study adds to the literature by focusing on a uniquely marginalized sub-population of relatives of sex offenders in Canada. This study examines some of the collateral consequences of sex offending on the relatives, while focusing primarily on the impacts and effects of media coverage on these relatives. The findings of this study are based on a thematic analysis of nine in-depth semi-structured interviews with partners, mothers and daughters of Canadian adult male sex offenders. Drawing on the theoretical contributions of Herbert Blumer’s (1969) symbolic interactionism and Erving Goffman’s (1963) stigma, this research finds that relatives of sex offenders encounter a myriad of consequences and repercussions resulting from a loved one’s sexually offending behaviour. In particular, the interview data suggests that the media coverage of a loved one’s criminalized behaviour exacerbates many of the already difficult and challenging collateral consequences, as well as the overall stigmatizing effects that arise when a loved one engages in sexually offending behaviour. Recommendations, offered by the participants, regarding future media reporting practices are presented, along with important directions for future research within this area of study.

abstract: While incarceration can be detrimental for inmates, the children of prisoners can suffer from behavioral issues, poor school performance, and a higher risk of crime and delinquency across the life-course. Separation from one's family is part of what makes incarceration a punishment, but what can be done to ensure that this punishment has the least harmful effect on children? Prison visitation presents an intriguing opportunity to lessen the potential harms of parental incarceration. Using data from the Arizona Prison Visitation Project (APVP), the current study focuses on inmates who were parents to minor children and seeks to determine: 1) do different types and different amounts of prison contact (in-person, phone, and mail) correlate with changes in the quality of parent-child relationships and 2) does a change in parent-child relationship quality correlate with a change in child behavior. The results from the analysis suggest that visitation and mail contact are associated with positive increases in parent-child relationship quality. Also, positive changes in parent-child relationship quality were associated with a decrease in the odds of children having behavioral problems during incarceration. This study provides some support for the ability that prison contact can have to increase relationship quality, which in turn, may decrease the presence of behavioral issues in the children of incarcerated parents. Future directions in policy should consider measures to subsidize or refund contact costs, encourage contact between parents and their children, and involve children in in-prison programming designed to improve contact and relationships between parents and their children. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Criminology and Criminal Justice 2017

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AN ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION OF Stephanie Jerstad, for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Criminology and Criminal Justice, presented on January 11, 2022, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.TITLE: CARE FOR THE AGING: LONG-TERM CARE FACILITIES WILLINGNESS TO ACCEPT PERSONS CONVICTED OF SEXUAL OFFENDING MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Breanne Pleggenkuhle The present study is a multi-pronged approach to examine the willingness of long-term care facilities (LTCF) to accept persons on the sex offender registry or with a sexual offense conviction. First, this dissertation utilizes a statutory analysis to examine all 50 states policies for admitting and managing such individuals in long-term care. Second, the study aims to explain why some states may enact a LTC/SO policy by examining state characteristics, policy and political affiliation. Third, the study sets out to better understand if facility-level characteristics matter to the acceptance of persons on the sex offender registry. And will discuss findings from semi-structured interviews of LTCF administrators of their decision-making processes, and their attitudes towards company policy. The findings of all three levels of analyses are presented and future research is discussed. Keywords: Sex offender, long-term care facility, SORN and residency restriction laws, statutory review, collateral consequences of sex offender policy