Understanding the experiences of children of incarcerated parents and their coping strategies

Abstract

The children of incarcerated parents remain a highly vulnerable and underrated population in academic discourses, and very little is known about the impact of parental incarceration from the perspective of the children in Kashmir. The passing glimpse into children’s experiences comes from some previous studies that have researched conflict-linked incarceration and its impact on family members, including children. To fill this gap in research, the current article was designed to explore and document the lived experiences of children of incarcerated parents imprisoned for purely nonpolitical offenses or offenses under the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Data was collected by interviewing the children of 17 prisoners. The analysis of the data led to the emergence of the following key themes: denial vs shame, ambiguous loss, impoverishment of the prisoner’s family, experiencing stigma, living in constant fear of reprisal from the victim’s family, and coping mechanisms used by the children to overcome the challenges developed due to their parental incarceration.