In the past 40 years, the U.S. has experienced its largest expansion of incarceration. Sociological research has begun to examine the effects the dramatics rises in incarceration in the United States on other areas of social life. One area of research has examined the effects of parental incarceration on children. In this study, I examined the effects of parental incarceration on intragenerational and intergenerational socioeconomic mobility using data from nationally-representative sample of respondents who had been studied from adolescence to young adulthood. Specifically, I examined the effects of parental incarceration prevalence and duration on three measures of socioeconomic status—household income, occupational prestige, and educational attainment—at young adulthood while controlling for measures of parental socioeconomic status and socioeconomic status during adolescence. I found that the presence of parental incarceration, especially when it occurred before adulthood, exerted significant negative effects on all three measures of socioeconomic status at young adulthood. These effects were rather consistent throughout my results. The duration of parental incarceration among those who experienced it exerted few significant effects on socioeconomic status. I also found that the main mechanisms through which parental incarceration affected social mobility were early economic disadvantage and criminal justice contact. Parental incarceration had a significant negative effect on household income during adolescence. It also had a significant positive effect on arrests during adulthood. Low levels of household income during adolescence and high levels of arrests during adulthood, then, were associated with diminished socioeconomic life chances. Some of the effects of parental incarceration on social mobility were moderated by gender, race, and other demographic and contextual control variables, but the nature of those moderating effects was not consistent throughout my analyses. These findings indicate parental incarceration helps set in motion a process of cumulative disadvantage and a process of the intergenerational transmission of offending (and the negative social and economic consequences that come with it). The effects of both of these processes are that children of parents who’ve been “locked up” are then “locked out” of economic opportunities. This process may help form and reinforce social class boundaries.

abstract: The purpose of this project is to better understand the factors associated with, and effects of, prison visitation for children during maternal and paternal incarceration. As gatekeepers, caregivers play a pivotal role in the facilitation of parent-child prison visitation. Yet, some caregivers may be more likely to take children to visit than others. Additionally, among those children who do visit, visitation may be positive in some ways and negative in others. To advance prior work, this study (1) assesses the relationship between caregiver type and parent-child prison visitation and (2) investigates the emotional and behavioral responses of children who visit. The current research uses mixed-methods and is carried out in two phases. For Phase 1, quantitative data on 984 children collected from structured interviews with incarcerated parents (N=279 mothers; N=143 fathers) in the Arizona Department of Corrections are used to examine the relationship between caregiver type and the likelihood of parent-child prison visitation. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression analyses are conducted separately for maternal and paternal incarceration. Phase 2 draws on caregivers' accounts of 40 children who visit their parent in prison to assess children's emotional and behavioral reactions to visitation. Data are coded to identify positive and negative responses, "visitation paradox" indicators, prior life circumstances and child age. Thematic content analyses are conducted to capture major themes. Analyses from Phase 1 confirm a significant relationship between caregiver type and mother-child and father-child visitation. Other factors that affected the likelihood of parental visitation included child situational factors, parent stressors, institutional barriers and child demographics, although these effects differed depending upon which parent was in prison. Results from Phase 2 revealed overwhelmingly negative responses among children to parental prison visitation. Key themes that accounted for child reactions included institutional context and parental attachment. This research adds to the collateral consequences of incarceration literature by providing greater insight into the imprisonment experience for vulnerable families. Further, these results have direct implications for correctional policy and practice pertaining to the manner and regulation of prison visits and also inform reentry efforts through a family-centric approach. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Criminology and Criminal Justice 2014

America has the highest incarceration rate in the world with an estimated 2.2 million inmates, and more than five million American children have at least one parent in jail (Murphey, 2015). Prior to imprisonment, many parents are employed, contribute economically to family life, and are engaged in parenting their children. Parent-child relationships that may have been strong pre-incarceration may not thrive once the parent goes to jail due to limited communication and the inmate’s inability to provide financial support for his/her family. Further, once the parent is released from prison, s/he faces fewer options for employment with a criminal history. Developmental programs in prison such as job training and parenting skills exist to mediate these negative outcomes. Although program participation is associated with a 20% likelihood of increased employment among inmates, little research explores the motivating factors behind program participation (Visher, Debus, & Yahner, 2008). This study poses three research questions that explore child contact and program participation as factors of increased employment post-release. In detail, the first research question explores factors related to child contact in prison, focusing on the history of parent-child financial support prior to incarceration. The second research question explores the relationships between child contact in-prison and program participation. Finally, this paper tests a third research question to explore child contact and program participation as factors of employment outcomes post- release. Interesting findings from the study suggest that parental inmates with frequent child contact in-prison are likely to have been their child(ren)’s primary source of financial support prior to incarceration. Inmates with frequent reports of child contact are also more likely to participate in developmental programs during their sentences and more likely to be employed post-release. These associations may exist because parental inmates have a sense of responsibility after being in touch with their children. Therefore, policymakers should consider removing contact barriers that complicate phone access and visitation privileges between parental inmates and their minor child(ren).

Many caregivers for children of incarcerated parents report that they struggle to speak with children about their parent’s incarceration or substance use (Manby et al., 2015; Smyke, Bailey & Zeanah, 2017). Children’s picturebooks are promising tools to aid caregivers in this regard (Colomer et al., 2010; Lowe, 2009: p. 3; Wolf, 2017). However, research that explores the content of children’s picturebooks as effective communication tools on the topics of parental incarceration and substance use is limited. This thesis uses arts-based methods including thematic narrative analysis, techniques of visual criminology, and autoethnography to explore the textual and visual narratives that are present in a series of picturebooks for children under the age of ten on the topic of parental incarceration and substance use. It also explores how these narratives resonate with my lived experience as the daughter of a former drug user and prisoner. Mobilizing a theoretical framework based on the sociology of emotions literature and picturebook studies (Hochschild, 1980; McCarthy, 1994), I conceptualize the role of specific emotions, including hope, in children’s literature. While the picturebooks accurately depict children’s emotional experiences when their parent lives with addiction or experiences incarceration, they fail to manage children’s expectations about the barriers their family may face when their loved one is released, such as barriers relating to poverty, mental illness, and relapse. The picturebooks in this study present young children with fairy tale endings and risk providing them with a false sense of hope regarding their parent’s release. Authors of picturebooks for children under the age of ten must consider how to balance truth-telling with age-appropriateness and the desire to provide young children with hope in these circumstances.

Researchers have established that legal cynicism is linked to violence, deviant behavior, and crime. In response to the potentially dangerous implications of a legally cynical society, research in recent years has attempted to identify experiences and conditions that play a role in the development of legal attitudes. Given that youths' familial and social conditions appear to be influential predictors, this study tests the relationship between parental incarceration and legal cynicism. Data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study were used for this analysis. Results from three OLS regression models indicate that parental incarceration is not a significant predictor of legal cynicism after adjusting for demographic factors. This study supports existing research for some of the risk factors tested and refutes others. Overall, findings do not support the hypothesis that children who have experienced parental incarceration have a heightened risk of legal cynicism in adolescence. Future research may investigate how youths' witness of parental arrest shapes legal attitudes.

This essay explores the design, measures and effectiveness of parenting programs for incarcerated parents. There is a growing concern for children who have incarcerated parents. The potential effects of parental incarceration and the intergenerational nature of crime and delinquency is one reason to develop parenting programs. Experiences of parental incarceration are believed to cause mental, physical, emotional and economic hardship for children. Parenting programs might be beneficial for both parents and their children. Results suggest that further efforts need to be made to support incarcerated parents during incarceration as well as after release.

This study compared the experiences of adolescent offenders with and without incarcerated parents. A sample of adolescent offenders (n = 26) completed questionnaires assessing past experiences, including trauma and violence, and current behaviors. Over half of the participants reported having a parent who had served time in jail or prison. Adolescent offenders with incarcerated parents were more likely to feel safe at home and school, and more likely to witness their parents in a physical fight than adolescent offenders without incarcerated parents. In contrast, there were no significant differences between adolescent offenders with and without incarcerated parents in self-reported trauma. Post hoc analyses revealed that female adolescent offenders felt less safe, reported more physical punishment, and had more DHS involvement than male adolescent offenders.

No description available.

Children with incarcerated parents face a disproportionate number of risk factors for becoming incarcerated (Bilchik, Seymour & Kreisher, 2001; Jucovy, 2003; Martin, 2001). The purpose of this study was to empirically analyze the relationship between episodes of parental incarceration and psycho-social and educational outcomes. This study aimed to find earlier indicators of incarceration risk, in order to provide points for intervention. Concepts from the differential association and social learning theories (criminology), attachment theory (psychology and sociology) and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (motivational psychology, used often in the field of education) were used as a guide in order to create a unique conceptual framework that directs the statistical models selected in this study. The data for the proposed study were drawn from the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect, which is a project of the Family Development Center at Cornell University. Specifically, the dataset from the Longitudinal Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (LONGSCAN) was used. ANOVAs and correlations were used preliminarily to explore relationships among variables. The impact that episodes of parental incarceration have on psycho-social variables and educational outcome variables was tested using sequential OLS regression models. The major research question of this study was, "Do psycho-social variables or educational outcomes differ based on episodes of parental incarceration?" The results suggest the only educational outcome that differs based on episodes of parental incarceration is externalized behavior problems. This difference is present in the full sample, but not in the matched sample, implying that this relationship is only significant when compared to low risk subjects, and is not significant when compared to equally at-risk subjects. The secondary question in this research study was, "How does the relationship between attachment to parents and psycho-social variables (post-traumatic stress or self esteem) differ based on episodes of parental incarceration?" The results of this analysis showed that problems with attachment to parents did become a more significant predictor of post- traumatic stress and self esteem when frequency of parental incarceration was added to the regression model. After analysis of the results, two themes are discussed: sample selection and its implication for socio-context of at-risk students and age implication and the role of elapsed time. / Urban Education

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