Parental Incarceration and the Family

Psychological and Social Effects of Imprisonment on Children, Parents, and Caregivers

Joyce A. Arditti

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780814708057
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy
• Index: Psychology

Over 2% of U.S.children under the age of 18—more than 1,700,000 children—have a parent in prison. These children experience very real disadvantages when compared to their peers: they tend to experience lower levels of educational success, social exclusion, and even a higher likelihood of their own future incarceration. Meanwhile, their new caregivers have to adjust to their new responsibilities as their lives change overnight, and the incarcerated parents are cut off from their children’s development. Parental Incarceration and the Family brings a family perspective to our understanding of what it means to have so many of our nation’s parents in prison. Drawing from the field’s most recent research and the author’s own fieldwork, Joyce Ardittioffers an in-depth look at how incarceration affects entire families: offender parents, children, and care-givers. Through the use of exemplars, anecdotes, and reflections, Joyce Arditti puts a human face on the mass of humanity behind bars, as well as those family members who are affected by a parent’s imprisonment. In focusing on offenders as parents, a radically different social policy agenda emerges—one that calls for real reform and that responds to the collective vulnerabilities of the incarcerated and their kin.

1
Introduction
A Framework for Understanding Parental Incarceration

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.

Spinoza (1632–1677)

[People] may be said to resemble not the bricks of which a house is built, but the pieces of a picture puzzle, each differing in shape, but matching the rest, and thus bringing out the picture.

Felix Adler

The visiting area of the jail had a mix of smells: urine, sweat, and desperation. I was instantly reminded of the homes I had visited during my tenure as a social worker, many years prior. The air was close and the room noisy as it was packed with visitors on this early Saturday morning. Children were fidgeting on their mothers’ laps, rolling around on the dirty floor, trying to make paper airplanes out of the religious pamphlets they had found in display racks on the wall. There were mostly women and children here today. I tried to push away the thoughts of an earlier visit to this facility, during which I had entered through a different door with the sheriff to tour the holding cells and “pods” where the prisoners spent their days, months, and sometimes years. No fresh air, no sunlight, no privacy, but instead noise, bars, day after day, hour after hour. A human zoo—a place invisible to most except the incarcerated and their captors. So much pain in that place—it overwhelmed me.

There is a reason that prisons are tucked away far from the hustle and bustle of daily life—built in remote towns that need jobs and “industry.” Human suffering, whether caused by one’s own actions or the actions of others, is a hard thing to confront. No one wants to feel it around them. No one wants to see it. Even this jail went unnoticed in the heart of town, probably because of the lack of windows. The sheriff told me that “he likes it that way.” The many jails and prisons I had visited were surrounded by fences, wires, and walls: all of it to keep some locked away and the rest of us out.¹

It is a risk to start a book on parental incarceration with a personal reflection from field notes compiled during a study of the impact of parental incarceration on families. The notes reflect the visceral experience of being there and the transformative potential of fieldwork in corrections settings (Arditti, Joest, Lambert-Shute, & Walker, 2010). In doing so I acknowledge the proverbial elephant in the room: human suffering. Prisons and jail are not happy places. Criminologists James Austin and John Irwin (2001) provide a succinct description of the prison experience today:

Convicted primarily of property and drug crimes, 1.3 million prisoners and another 600,000 jailed inmates are being crowded into human (or inhuman) warehouses where they are increasingly deprived, restricted, isolated, and consequently embittered and alienated from conventional worlds. (p. 90)

Jails and prisons contain a great deal of collective suffering not only on the part of prisoners but also for family members connected with the offender (Arditti, 2003; Arditti & Few, 2008; Sack & Seidler, 1978). Human suffering of this nature, defined as social suffering, constitutes

a collective form of bad luck, that attaches itself like a fate, to all those that have been put together in those sites of social relegation, where the personal suffering of each is augmented by all the suffering that comes from coexisting and living with so many suffering people together…and more importantly, of the destiny effect from belonging to a stigmatized group. (Bourdieu, 1999, p. 64)

Social suffering impacts family, community, and society in both economic and moral terms (Bourdieu, 1999). Spinoza’s dictum—Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand—provides inspiration for this book on parental incarceration. French sociologist and philosopher Pierre Bourdieu (1999) contends that we must take Spinoza’s precept to heart if we are to come up with a comprehensive picture of human difficulty and its systemic causes. In that vein, this book represents a scholarly effort to understand.

Of course, like uniquely shaped puzzle pieces, not all offenders are the same, and not all jails and prisons are the same. Some jails and prisons have better conditions than the one described in my field notes, some institutions employ progressive practices, and some provide rehabilitation and opportunities for the imprisoned. Prison may result in unexpected changes for those within its walls. Prison may be a place where a person receives treatment for drug addiction or mental illness for the first time. Prison may stop a violent predator in his or her tracks. Prison may protect those who have been victimized and who breathe a sigh of relief now that the offender is removed from the streets. Yet there is a whole picture here, one that comes into focus when the puzzle pieces are linked—including the piece that constitutes social suffering. The picture is this: prisoners are human beings, many of whom are parents. Children lose parents to prisons and jails, and families change when someone goes to prison. Sometimes these changes help, but very often it seems they hurt not only the offender parent but also the children and others closest to the offender.

This book is meant to achieve two goals. First and most important, it tells the story of parental incarceration by focusing on the imprisoned, their children, and their family members. We know a lot about incarceration rates, crime rates, and so on, but what of the mass of humanity behind bars, as well as those affected on the outside? In this book I put a human face on the numbers and trends in interpreting what science has to say about mass imprisonment; I utilize exemplars, anecdotes, and my own reflections to flesh out interpretation. As much as one might try, it is difficult to be purely objective in the telling of this story because so much is at stake, so many lives are affected, and family adversity of the magnitude that is connected to the incarceration of a parent is very disturbing to witness and document. The research findings are generally not positive, and happy stories are hard to come by. Parental incarceration research is not neutral ground because suffering inspires emotion not only among the researched but also among those who study families in trouble. Qualitative researchers know this only too well. This book is grounded in scientific “fact” per the published research, but in reality these facts are continuously being written and constructed and rewritten (Wonders, 1996). It represents a version of reality in that like other feminist scholars, I acknowledge the “subjective and transitory nature of all truth.” The story here is my take on things, a version you can trust, a version aimed at understanding, but it is only one version.

This book joins many other voices to question a criminal justice approach that relies so heavily on imprisonment. While we might all agree that incarceration may be a necessary response to certain public safety threats and injustices, its widespread use creates further safety threats and injustices not only for the public but also for family members of the imprisoned and for the incarcerated parents themselves. A second goal of the book, therefore, is to highlight the reasons for widespread incarceration of parents and the intended and unintended consequences of the imprisonment of offenders, particularly nonviolent offenders, for families. In doing so, I hope the book’s contents will inspire critical thinking among its readers and serve as a catalyst to question our nation’s current emphasis on punishment in response to an increasingly broad array of activities defined as criminal. A hammer is a good tool, but it can only achieve certain things. We might use it to put a nail in the wall, but it would be of little service in unscrewing a pipe (better to use a wrench). The research presented here demonstrates that the United States relies too much on its hammer and needs to start using other tools. These tools encompass social policy reform aimed at social justice, harm reduction, and the promotion of human development. Imprisonment is an incomplete and often bureaucratic response to human problems that stem from contexts of extreme disadvantage and family adaptations to adversity. As we shall see, “institutional actions can (and often do) deepen and make more intractable the problems they seek to ameliorate” (Das & Kleinman, 2001, p. 2). This book offers a basis not only to ask questions but also to come up with different answers when it comes to dealing with parent offenders and their families—answers that visibly address the underlying conditions associated with criminal justice involvement and embrace core principles of developmental science.

Background

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, having surpassed Russia in 2000 (Mauer, 2006). At the end of 2008, federal and state corrections facilities held 1,610,446 prisoners, reaching all-time year-end highs (West, Sabol, & Cooper, 2009). Additionally, at midyear 2009, another 767,992 offenders were confined to local jails (Minton, 2010).² Substantial portions of the nation’s prisoners are parents—52% of state inmates and 63% of federal inmates. Bureau of Justice estimates for 2007 indicate that the nation’s prisoners report having an estimated 1,706,600 minor children, accounting for 2.3% of the U.S. population under age 18 (Glaze & Maruschak, 2008). One-third of these children will reach the age of 18 while their parent is still incarcerated (Glaze & Maruschak, 2008). Parents of minor children held in the nation’s prisons increased by 79% between 1991 and midyear 2007 (Glaze & Maruschak, 2008), and the trend, while slowing (West et al., 2009), reflects the continued and widespread use of incarceration as a crime control strategy in the United States (Austin & Irwin, 2001; Dressel, 1994; Mauer, 2006).

What are we to make of these trends in terms of both crime control and the impact of incarceration on families? With regard to crime control, the relationship between incarceration and crime is a complex one (King, Mauer, & Young, 2005). Historically, the use of incarceration was proportionate to population growth; however, in the last 30 years or so the increased number of people in prisons and jails across the country has far outpaced population growth. Specifically, between 1970 and 2000 the general population rose by less than 40%, yet the number of imprisoned individuals rose by more than 500% (King et al., 2005). Opponents of incarceration interpret this outpacing as one indication of an “overreliance” on incarceration that is excessive, expensive, and damaging to society (Austin, Bruce, Carroll, McCall, & Richards, 2000; King et al., 2005; Mauer, 2006). Yet steady declines in violent and nonviolent crime since 1992–2010 provide evidence for proponents of the increased use of incarceration as a necessary and effective response to crime (FBI 2009, 2010). Recent testimony at a Federal Sentencing Commission hearing by the Department of Justice (DOJ) continues to reflect a belief in the necessity of a “get tough on crime approach” to ensure public safety, although there is an emerging recognition that adjustments may be needed for disparate or extremely severe sentencing guidelines (Testimony of the United States Department of Justice, 2010). In sum, experts disagree regarding the role of imprisonment in reducing crime, although there is some consensus that increased numbers of police and waning crack use are additional factors contributing to lower crime rates.³ At the very least, a simple causal relationship between incarceration and crime reduction is suspect, with increased prison populations accounting for a portion of crime prevention, but not all of it.

Views about the necessity of incarceration or its purported damage are subject to a wide range of interpretation depending on one’s criterion of analysis.⁴ As we shall see, a family focus necessitates considerations beyond public safety and crime reduction to include criteria such as child development and health, family functioning, and parental competence. This book takes a “family perspective” that focuses on incarcerated individuals who are parents, and on the impact incarceration has on their ability to parent, as well as the consequences of incarceration on their nonincarcerated family members. Parents who are incarcerated are deeply and often negatively affected by the experience of imprisonment relative to their ability to contribute to the lives of their children, their children’s caregivers, and other kin (Hagan & Dinovitzer, 1999). An understanding of family influences has been deemed critical in understanding “a prisoner’s life” and an individual’s transition back from prison to community (Visher & Travis, 2003).

The core goal of this book is to help meet the growing need of scholars, students, policy makers, and practitioners trying to make sense of the research and to devise evidence-based responses to the results of mass incarceration and its consequences: deteriorating family ties, high recidivism, intergenerational patterns of criminality, and communities where large numbers of parents, particularly fathers, are absent due to incarceration (Herman-Stahl, Kan, & McKay, 2008; Huebner & Gustafson, 2007; Lynch & Sabol, 2001; Western & McLanahan, 2000). Informed by ecological theory and developmental contextualism, this book bring pieces of the empirical literature together in a new way with the hope of more clearly providing an evidence-based foundation for clinical intervention and policy responses. Indeed, psychologists are in the business of intervening with respect to process as many contextual factors are rigid and unchangeable. A focus on process, and in particular parenting processes, provides a fertile avenue for intervention and change.

Most research about prisoners and their families is largely the result of scholars working from either a macrolevel (i.e., societal) perspective within criminology, demography, or sociology, or conversely, from a microlevel perspective focused on individual deviance (Day, Acock, Bahr, & Arditti, 2005). In bringing a family perspective to the current literature on parental incarceration, we will consider the nature and quality of parenting as central to the debate, rather than simply a consequence of mass imprisonment policies. It has been said that “the family generally, and parenting specifically, are today in a greater state of flux, question, and redefinition than… ever before” (Bornstein, 2002, xi). Arguably, in the last 25 years, incarceration has emerged as a primary force in the redefinition of parenthood. Parenthood is a life-altering status and experience that naturally involves a focus on children and their development. Parents are charged with protecting their children from harm, preventing adversity, and promoting their children’s well-being (Hoghughi, 2004). Children’s well-being is inextricably linked to their parents—to their mothers’ and fathers’ capacity to protect, prevent, and promote. But as journalist Nell Bernstein (2005) points out, parenthood also has consequences for parents in that it involves “giving and responsibility… pleasures, privileges, and profits as well as frustrations, fears, and failures” (p. x). While parenthood may alter lives, so too does imprisonment. Prison confinement is perhaps one of the most radical means of altering experience, changing families, and clearly limiting an individual’s ability to “protect, prevent, and promote” his or her children. In this book we will consider the intersection of parenthood and prison. This book is one response to the question: What happens when the two paths, parenthood and prison, cross?

What Is a Family Perspective?

The happiness of any society begins with the well-being of the families that live in it. Kofi Annan

As reflected by these well-known words from Nobel Peace Prize winner and former United Nations head Kofi Annan, family well-being can be seen as a critical foundation of societal health. However, within the realm of policymaking many policies fall outside the explicit definition of “family policy” and are not formulated with family well-being in mind. A family perspective acknowledges the “important role that family considerations can play in a broad range of policy issues” (Bogenschneider, 2002, p. 25). A family perspective involves analyzing a policy or program, in this case, the incarceration of individuals who have offspring, regardless of whether the policy/program in question is explicitly aimed at families. The criterion for such an analysis is family well-being (Bogenschneider, 2002). Criminal justice policy is generally not formulated with family well-being as an explicit outcome. Rather, incarceration-related policy and intervention are more typically aimed at reducing crime and criminality in its myriad manifestations, as well as eradicating certain social ills such as drug use or handgun violence (Donzinger, 1996). A family perspective necessitates examining how parental incarceration affects the imprisoned parent, as well as family stability, the quality of family relationships, and the family’s ability to carry out its responsibilities and functions. Central to a family perspective is the issue of parenting: an issue that is not adequately addressed in the literature on parental incarceration, which tends to more often focus on the effects of a parent’s incarceration on child adjustment, without due consideration of mediating family processes and offenders’ parenting capacity.

In thinking about incarceration, a family perspective centered on parents has great utility. Incarceration involves not only the removal of a parent from a family system and a dramatic lessening or cessation of his or her parenting contributions (Arditti, Smock, & Parkman, 2005; Hagan & Dinovitzer, 1999; Hairston, 1998; Swisher & Waller, 2008) but also the incapacitation of offenders whereby they are psychologically and socially altered as a result of imprisonment (Austin & Irwin, 2001; Haney, 2002; Irwin, 2005). Such alteration can result in reduced parenting capacity during and beyond a period of incarceration for parents who wish to be a meaningful part of their children’s lives.

There are several books and reviews that deal broadly with issues pertaining to families and incarceration. Existing reviews tend to either focus in depth on one type of scenario such as the children of imprisoned parents (see, e.g., Hairston, 2007; Murray, 2005; Parke & Clarke-Stewart, 2001; Reed & Reed, 1997), child antisocial behavior and mental health (Murray, Farrington, Sekol, & Olsen, 2009), children with incarcerated mothers (Dallaire, 2007a), or the effects of paternal incarceration on children (Herman-Stahl et al., 2008; Hairston, 1998), or contain overviews of many issues that pertain to parental incarceration but lack an integrative lens, making it difficult, in psychologist Alfred Adler’s words, to “bring out the picture.”⁵ One of the more influential works relevant to thinking about families and incarceration was authored by noted sociologist John Hagan and his colleague Ronit Dinovitzer (1999). The article, entitled “Collateral Consequences of Imprisonment for Children, Communities, and Prisoners,” draws from classic theoretical perspectives in criminology and sociology. The authors argue that family is best understood within the larger context of the use of imprisonment “as a criminal sanction,” and that growth of imprisonment has tremendous costs in terms of human and social capital. These costs involve repercussions involving the employability of offenders, and the children who must bear the diminished economic and social capital of their families and communities. Most notable here are the deprivations associated with the economic and socialization contributions of the parent as a result of imprisonment.

Perhaps the most important contribution of Hagan and Dinovitzer (1999) was to draw attention to the profound connection between criminal sanction policy and children within the macro disciplines of crim...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Introduction: A Framework for Understanding Parental Incarceration
• 2. Context and Processes Associated with Incarcerated Parenting
• 3. Maternal Incarceration
• 4. Paternal Incarceration
• 5. The Effects of Incarceration on Families and Children
• 6. Conclusion: Practice and Policy Implications of a Family Perspective on Parental Incarceration
• Appendix
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author