NCJ Number
174358
Date Published
1995
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This paper describes what is currently happening to children of incarcerated parents, how services to these children and families might be more effective, and promising strategies for achieving these improvements.
Abstract
Seventy-five percent of the women in prison are mothers, typically of two to three children. Approximately 67 percent of the mothers were the primary caregiver of at least one child when they were arrested. Apparently about 10 percent of the children of incarcerated mothers are placed in foster care. The children both in foster care and with friends and relatives experience considerable instability. They typically are shifted between residences and caregivers several times while their mother is gone, and many are separated from siblings. A 1993 report by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency warned that children traumatized by their parent's arrest and subsequent separation suffer a wide array of psychological problems, including trauma, anxiety, guilt, shame, and fear. These problems often manifest themselves in poor academic achievement, truancy, dropping out of school, gang involvement, early pregnancy, drug abuse, and delinquency. There is very little systematic effort to facilitate and guide the maintenance and enhancement of the mother-child relationship while the mother is incarcerated, and efforts to foster reunification and family development after release are meager. Promising approaches involve a shift of resources to community-based initiatives that can provide criminal justice supervision with drug treatment education, along with vocational programs that will enable adults to care for their families. There must be a shared commitment of all involved agencies to keep families together whenever possible and to provide the intensive social services that develop better parenting and help enrich the lives and possibilities of children. This paper lists the common characteristics of effective interventions and provides examples of the types of programs that might be developed.