NCJ Number
82533
Journal
Journal of Offender Counseling Services and Rehabilitation Volume: 5 Issue: 3 and 4 Dated: (Spring/Summer 1981) Pages: 5-12
Date Published
1982
Length
8 pages
Annotation
The absence of national correctional policy, planning, or coordination to provide for the needs of families whose head-of-household is arrested and imprisoned, often a low-income family, contributes to the disruption of the family and heightens the chance of recidivism.
Abstract
Families who are poor at the time a husband is arrested are likely to grow poorer. Even missing a day's work for a defendant later released on his own recognizance means loss of hourly wages and possible jeopardy of his job. Incarceration can result in loss of the major part of the family income, so that property is repossessed. If the prisoner is institutionalized far from home, family visits will entail financial and time burdens. Furthermore, children are distressed and demoralized by an absent father; wives suffer loneliness, sexual frustration, stigmatization, marital distress. Mail is censored, sometimes lost. Visits take place in unnatural environments. Policies toward the prisoner as part of a family unit should minimize this family erosion. Coordinated services for correctional facilities should emphasize family counseling and advocacy, payment for transportation, and overnight lodging arrangements for visiting families. Prisoner facility assignment and sentencing should focus on keeping the inmate close to home. More funding should be channeled to community-based corrections. Other suggestions are presented. Thirty-seven references are provided.