Effects of Parental Incarceration on Children: Lessons from International Research

Besemer, Kirsten; Dennison, Susan; Bijleveld, Catrien; Murray, Joseph A.

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-16707-3_6

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 74 publications

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“…Some nonprofit organizations have increasingly pointed out the lack of public interest in the needs of this group of children. Their daily experience shows that even Czech children of incarcerated parents face a plethora of grave negative life experiences, consistent with findings published in research studies from abroad (Besemer et al, 2019; McGinley and Jones, 2018; Minson, 2019; Murphey and Cooper, 2015; Nuytiens and Jehaes, 2022; Poehlman-Tynan et al, 2019; Sykes and Pettit, 2019). These studies show that this group of children is subject to many grave risks, due not only to parental incarceration itself, but also the disadvantages facing their families prior to incarceration.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 82%

“…Because the term “capability” refers fundamentally to the “concept of freedom,” reflecting the range of possibilities that one has in making life choices (Palovičová, 2011: 837), it is especially important to “… Watch the relationship between the space of social possibilities and the space of individual needs” (Otto and Ziegler, 2008: 12). We find it imperative to investigate the individual needs of children of incarcerated parents because international studies show that social opportunities decrease significantly in many areas of their lives as a result of the incarceration of a parent (Scharff-Smith and Gampell, 2011) and negatively affect their well-being (Bessemer et al, 2019; Minson, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Needs of Children With Incarcerated Parents in Their Own Voice

Navrátilová

Navrátil

Punová

et al. 2023

Qualitative Social Work

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Even though Czech social policy cites child protection as one of its main priorities, there continue to be groups of children whose needs remain unnoticed. As many as forty thousand Czech children with at least one incarcerated parent have failed to gain public attention, find no support in the national legislative framework, and are only slowly attracting the attention of helping professionals. Guided by our research question—“What are the needs of children whose parent leaves the household due to incarceration?”—we describe the individual needs of children of incarcerated parents in their own voices through phenomenological optics. These needs, recorded via individual interviews and focus groups, contextualized using the theoretical methodology of the capability approach, which serves as the framework for assessing the relationship between the stated needs of these children and their overall well-being.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 82%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Needs of Children With Incarcerated Parents in Their Own Voice

Navrátilová

Navrátil

Punová

et al. 2023

Qualitative Social Work

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“…Children of incarcerated parents comprise a disadvantaged group with high risk of marginalisation and poor well-being [1][2][3], and incarceration also inflicts negative emotions in relation to parenting for the incarcerated parent [4,5]. In an international perspective, children with incarcerated parents have a higher risk of a number of negative outcomes related to health and marginalisation, such as mental, social, emotional, behavioural, and physical problems compared to children without incarcerated parents [1][2][3][6][7][8]. In addition, cross-country data including Swedish data, point towards an intergenerational effect on delinquency carried from parent to child, where children of incarcerated parents run a higher risk for own delinquency compared to children without incarcerated parents [2,9,10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of a parental support intervention for parents in prison on child-parent relationship and criminal attitude—The For Our Children’s Sake pragmatic controlled study

Norman

Enebrink

2023

PLoS ONE

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Background Children of incarcerated parents run a high risk for poor health and marginalisation across development where positive parenting comprises an essential protective factor. The For Our Children’s Sake (FOCS) intervention is delivered with incarcerated parents in Sweden to support parenting and healthy child development. This study aimed to explore the effects of the FOCS intervention on relationship quality between parent and child, parent criminal attitude and interest in treatment, while investigating intervention fidelity. Methods The non-randomised non-blinded pragmatic controlled study was carried out during 2019–2020 in 15 prisons with 91 parents throughout Sweden. Group allocation was based on the set operation planning at each prison. Prisons delivering FOCS during the study period were recruited to the intervention group, whereas prisons delivering FOCS later were recruited to the control group. Outcomes were measured through parent-report at baseline September-December 2019 (T0), after intervention (T1) in January-April 2020, and at three-months follow-up in April-July in 2020 (T2). The primary outcome was relationship quality between incarcerated parent and child and secondary outcomes were criminal attitude, interest in other treatment programmes, and child-parent contact. Fidelity to intervention delivery was monitored through objectively rated audio recorded sessions by researchers, and by group-leader-reported logs. Group differences on outcome over time and at each time point were explored using mixed-model regression with repeated measures with an intention-to-treat approach and per protocol. Results The intention-to-treat analysis showed favourable intervention effects over time for relationship quality, explained by a higher intervention group score at T2. An intervention effect was found for parental interest in other prison-delivered treatments at T2. The analysis per protocol found similar but stronger effects on the relationship quality and an additional intervention effect over time for criminal attitude, also explained by a significant group difference at T2. The effect on treatment interest did not reach statistical significance in the analysis per protocol. Group leaders reported that all sessions had been performed and the objective ratings of fidelity rendered overall acceptable delivery of the intervention. Conclusions The FOCS intervention had beneficial effects on relationship quality, and outcomes related to criminality which suggests that a parenting intervention for incarcerated parents has the potential to influence both parenting outcomes and outcomes related to a criminal lifestyle. Future studies should investigate intervention effectiveness on long-term outcomes related to both child health and parental recidivism. Further development of intervention components is suggested with the hypothesis to increase intervention effectiveness. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov: No. NCT04101799, prospectively registered on September 24, 2019, Identifier: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04101799, The authors confirm that all ongoing and related trials for this intervention are registered.

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“…While there is a growing body of research and literature on the impact of imprisonment on families (Condry & Scharff Smith, 2018), looking at recent scholarship in this area, we notice a specific focus on partners of prisoners (De Claire et al, 2020; Kotova, 2015), their children and the impact of intergenerational trauma (Arditti, 2016; Besemer et al, 2019; Halsey & De Vel-Palumbo, 2020; Minson, 2020; Saunders, 2018; Sharratt et al, 2018). There is limited scholarship on other family members, such as parents and siblings, how they experience the confrontation with the criminal justice system and how it affects them (McCarthy & Adams, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Living with life”: Experiences of families of people serving a life sentence in Western Australia

Tubex,

Gately

2023

Journal of Criminology

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This paper contributes to the growing body of scholarship related to the impact of imprisonment on families, from the particular perspective of parents, siblings and other close relatives of people serving a life sentence. We argue that those family members are often overlooked in research and service provision, while bearing the burden of the association with the offender. This is particularly problematic for relatives of life sentenced prisoners, having to cope with the seriousness of the offence, and the uncertainty of the perspectives of release. Based on 17 interviews conducted in Western Australia, we discuss family members’ confrontation with and experiences throughout the criminal justice system. We report on how they manage to “live with life” and which coping mechanisms they developed. Our findings call for more investment into the matter, to generate a scholarship for a better understanding of and supporting initiatives for those close relatives.

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Effects of Parental Incarceration on Children: Lessons from International Research

Cited by 6 publications

References 74 publications

Needs of Children With Incarcerated Parents in Their Own Voice

Needs of Children With Incarcerated Parents in Their Own Voice

Effects of a parental support intervention for parents in prison on child-parent relationship and criminal attitude—The For Our Children’s Sake pragmatic controlled study

“Living with life”: Experiences of families of people serving a life sentence in Western Australia

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