Familial Incarceration Research Articles

The Impact of Paternal Closeness and Familial Incarceration on the Self-Esteem of Black Adolescents

Background:Racially minoritized individuals make up the majority of the incarcerated population. The incarceration of a family member has lasting effects on family dynamics, particularly impacting the lives of adolescents. There is a need to understand how these experiences affect adolescent self-esteem and the role of family boundaries.Objective:To examine the impact of familial incarceration on adolescent self-reported self-esteem and the moderating role of boundaries between adolescents and their fathers, using structural family therapy as a guiding framework.Methods:The study utilized data from the 2016 wave of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-Children and Young Adults (NLSY-CYA), with a sample size of 341 adolescents. Simple linear and hierarchical regressions were conducted to assess the relationships between familial incarceration, perceived parental closeness, and adolescent self-esteem.Findings:Regression analysis revealed that having an incarcerated family member and lower perceived parental closeness were significantly associated with reduced self-esteem in adolescents. Additionally, closeness to fathers did not act as a protective factor in mitigating the negative impact of familial incarceration on adolescent self-esteem.Conclusions:The findings indicate that while familial incarceration and perceived parental closeness negatively impact adolescent self-esteem, closeness to fathers does not serve as a buffer. These results suggest that practitioners should explore alternative protective factors to support adolescents' self-esteem following familial incarceration.

Comparing Public Perceptions of Child and Adult Grief Responses to Familial Incarceration.

Children of incarcerated parents may grieve this loss, yet perceptions of their grief are understudied. Using vignettes varying by age (adult/child) and grief response (prolonged/resilient), we examined differences between perceptions of adults and children grieving parental incarceration. Participants rated grief response appropriateness, comfort providing support, and grief therapy recommendations for the grieving person in the vignette. Participants perceived resilience as more appropriate than prolonged grief [F (1, 224) = 9.02, p = .003, η2 = .04]. Age did not predict outcomes. Recommending grief therapy was higher for prolonged grief, yet 53% of participants with resilient vignettes recommended the person should seek grief therapy, which is concerning given possible iatrogenic effects. Thus, laypeople may have stigma toward individuals grieving parental incarceration, regardless of age.

We are all Sentenced: The Lived Experience of Mothers With an Adult Incarcerated Daughter

The vast majority of research on the impact of familial incarceration focuses on its effect on children, even though one in eight adults in the United States has had a child in prison. While some studies have examined the lived experiences of mothers with an incarcerated adult son, no research has explored the effect of an adult daughter’s incarceration on their mother. Using in-depth interviews with four mothers who have adult daughters in prison, this study finds that these mothers were significantly affected by their daughter’s incarceration. They experience painful emotions, face significant barriers and challenges, and highlight the pressing need for mental health services. Along with other prior works, our findings can be used to inform policy and clinical recommendations for those working with and advocating for incarcerated populations and their impacted loved ones.

Psychiatric Disorders among African Americans and the Intersection of Personal and Familial Incarceration

Psychiatric Disorders among African Americans and the Intersection of Personal and Familial Incarceration

The consequences of sibling criminal legal system contact for family life

AbstractObjectiveTo consider whether one sibling's criminal legal system contact influences another's material conditions, social support, and mental health and behavioral problems.BackgroundSibling incarceration is both the most common form of familial incarceration in the United States, with more than one in four Americans reporting ever experiencing this event, and highly unequally distributed. Despite how prevalent and unequally distributed sibling criminal legal system contact is, little research considers the consequences of that event for family life. This study seeks to partially fill that gap by testing whether and how a sibling's criminal legal system contact is associated with changes in the material conditions, social support, and wellbeing of caregivers and other children.MethodUsing data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, the authors estimate hierarchical linear models to consider the relationship between sibling criminal legal system contact and three core indicators of familial and child wellbeing: familial (1) social support and (2) material insecurity, and (3) child wellbeing, as indicated by behavioral and mental health problems using validated scales.ResultsSibling criminal legal system contact is associated with a reduction in the wellbeing of other children and contributes to declines in familial social support and material security.ConclusionTaken together, the results suggest that a sibling's criminal legal system contact can disrupt home life for siblings and families alike, highlighting yet another way that mass criminalization may imperil families and children.

Adult Children of the Prison Boom: Family Troubles and the Intergenerational Transmission of Criminal Justice Contact

Intergenerational transmission processes have long been of interest to demographers, but prior research on the intergenerational transmission of criminal justice contact is relatively sparse and limited by its lack of attention to the correlated “family troubles” and familial incarceration that predate criminal justice contact. In this article, we provide a test of the intergenerational transmission of criminal justice contact after adjusting extensively for these factors that predate such contact by linking longitudinal data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods with official arrest histories from 1995 to 2020. The results provide support for three conclusions. First, parental criminal justice contact is associated with a shorter time to first arrest and a larger number of arrests even after rigorously accounting for selection. Second, robustness checks demonstrate that neither the magnitude nor the significance of the findings is sensitive to model choices. Third, associations are strongest among White individuals and inconsistently significant for African American and Hispanic individuals. Despite large recent crime declines, the results indicate that parental criminal justice contact elevates the criminal justice contact of the adult children of the prison boom, independent of the often-overlooked troubles that predate criminal justice contact, and that these associations are strongest among the White population.

The Relationship Between Family Member Incarceration, Criminal Offending, and Victimization.

Mass incarceration has significantly impacted families nationwide. Recent evidence suggests that at least 45% of Americans have experienced the incarceration of an immediate family member (Enns et al., 2019). Prior evidence has demonstrated that adolescents and young adults who experience family member incarceration experience increases in criminogenic outcomes. However, less is known about whether family member incarceration contributes to increases in victimization and if it occurs indirectly through increases in offending. To address this question, the current study uses 10 waves of the Pathways to Desistance Study, which is a longitudinal study that followed justice-involved youth over 7 years (N = 8,346 person waves). Using fixed-effects negative binomial regression, findings demonstrate that experiencing familial incarceration is associated with increases in victimization and that criminal offending may be one mechanism that indirectly explains this relationship. Policy and programming implications are further discussed.

Beyond Empathy: Familial Incarceration, Stress Proliferation, and Depressive Symptoms Among African Americans

Abstract Women tend to be more vulnerable to the adverse psychological effects of “network events” (stressors that occur to loved ones). The cost-of-caring hypothesis is regarded as the primary mechanism for this vulnerability and posits that women’s relatively high level of emotional involvement in the lives of network members causes women to experience greater empathetic reactions when loved ones encounter stressors. Drawing on the stress process model, gender theory, and research on the collateral consequences of incarceration, we theorize stress proliferation, the process by which an initial stressor induces secondary stressors, as an additional mechanism and empirically test our theoretical propositions using the case of African Americans with an incarcerated family member. Using data from the National Survey of American Life, we ask: are African American women more vulnerable to the depressive effects of familial incarceration compared to African American men? If so, to what extent might African American women’s heightened vulnerability be explained by their greater susceptibility to stress proliferation? Results suggest that familial incarceration is associated with greater chronic strains, financial strain, and family conflict only among African American women. Further, the magnitude of the association between familial incarceration and depressive symptoms is significantly larger among African American women; however, after adjusting for stress proliferation variables, the gender difference in vulnerability attenuates and becomes statistically nonsignificant. We conclude that the emotional cost of caring may be compounded by social and economic costs of caregiving, heightening women’s vulnerability to depression following disruptive network events.

Adverse Childhood Experiences Among Seminarians: Personal Experiences of Trauma and Implications for Pastoral Well-Being and Ministerial Training

Recent research has shown Mainline Protestant clergy evidence poor mental health. In accounting for this, research has focused on occupational factors that impact health, with less attention paid to the role of selection into ministry as it relates to health. We investigate one possible selection characteristic, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), among a sample of 535 seminarians attending a Mainline seminary. Compared with a demographically matched national sample, these seminarians reported higher prevalence of the childhood experiences of emotional abuse, of living with someone with mental illness, and of sexual abuse. These seminarians also reported lower prevalence of parental separation/divorce and of familial incarceration. Furthermore, we found demographic variations in the prevalence of certain ACEs among the sample of seminarians. In addition to informing the scholarly discussion regarding mechanisms associated with clergy well-being, this work highlights the need for seminaries to attend to the ministerial formation of students with these experiences.

Formal Social Control and Mental Health: Ethnic Variation among Black Women

The present study uses elements of the social stress and intersectionality theories to examine associations between forms of criminal justice contact and mental health among African American and Afro-Caribbean women. While mass incarceration disproportionately targets, detains, and affects Black populations, the experiences and consequences of criminal justice contact for Black women remain understudied. Utilizing the National Survey of American Life ( n = 3,011), this study examined ethnic-stratified associations between criminal justice contact and three mental health indicators among Black women—psychological distress, self-rated mental health, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We assessed justice contact based on any contact (i.e., direct contact and/or family member incarceration), and then disaggregated contact into direct (i.e., personally experienced negative police interactions, arrests, and incarceration) and familial incarceration. Findings showed that any contact as well as direct forms of contact were associated with higher psychological distress for African American women and odds of PTSD for both groups. Furthermore, negative police interactions and family member incarceration were associated with psychological distress for African American women, while only familial incarceration worsened self-rated mental health for Afro-Caribbean women. This study yields important insights for research at the intersection of gender-ethnic status, spillover outcomes of formal social control, and mental health stratification.

Examining the Experience of Women in Justice-Involved Families During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Impact of Familial Incarceration

During the COVID-19 pandemic, social inequities have compounded hardships among justice-involved families, who are more likely to be marginalized by systemic disadvantage. Little is known about the experience of the pandemic for justice-involved families, particularly those with an incarcerated family member. We examined the concerns and resource barriers of women in justice-involved families, including the unique challenges faced by those with a currently incarcerated family member. Results revealed bimodal concern for, and impact of the pandemic on, their incarcerated family member; however, economic concerns largely superseded concern for their incarcerated family members. Additional analyses highlighted the financial precarity of families with an incarcerated family member, who reported more housing instability, less access to transportation, greater food insecurity, and more discrimination. These findings highlight the need to support marginalized families during a national crisis; justice-involved families are more likely to face systemic barriers that may be exacerbated by the pandemic.

Facing the Ties That Bind: Understanding Experiences of Men With An Incarcerated Romantic Partner.

This study examines what it means to be a man with an incarcerated romantic partner. Despite recognition that those experiencing familial incarceration are a heterogeneous group, the extant literature lacks a clear focus of the experience of men with incarcerated romantic partners. Using a phenomenological design, the researchers interviewed seven men with incarcerated romantic partners to explicate the essential structures of their lived experience. The interviews are explicated into six essences illuminating the experience of being a man with an incarcerated partner. Identified essences explored are: embodying the social tie facilitator, love and commitment living in future time, the sense of something missing, felt confinement, and the new normal. Fifteen additional sub-themes are discussed. These findings inform implications for both future research and policies that can aid in maintaining the ties that bind during familial incarceration.

Stress Among Older Adults With an Incarcerated Family Member: Testing the Buffering Model of Social Support

AbstractObjectivesThis study investigates whether levels of social support moderate the association between age and stress among a sample of individuals who have a family member incarcerated.MethodsSurvey responses from individuals who are members of a nonprofit organization for individuals with a family member incarcerated in Texas were used (n = 376). Ordinary least squares regression analysis was conducted to assess the interaction between age and levels of social support on stress.ResultsFindings demonstrated a negative interaction between social support and age (b = −0.040, p = .027), indicating that higher levels of social support buffer against stress for older adults.DiscussionThe theoretical mechanisms linking social support to reductions in stress among older individuals experiencing highly stressful life events (i.e., familial incarceration), as well as the policy and practical implications for enhancing social support among older individuals with a family member incarcerated, are discussed.

Familial Incarceration, Social Role Combinations, and Mental Health Among African American Women

AbstractObjectiveThe current study uses insights from the stress process model and role theory to examine the relationship between familial incarceration, three key social roles—spouse, parent, and employee—and African American women's mental health.BackgroundResearch documents the spillover effects of mass incarceration on the families of those incarcerated. Approximately half of black women have at least one family member currently incarcerated; yet the potential psychological costs of familial incarceration among black women remains under‐investigated, particularly among those who are not parents.MethodUtilizing the National Survey of American Life, a nationally representative sample of never‐incarcerated African American women (N = 1,961), this study used regression to examine the association of mental health (measured by psychological distress and depressive symptomatology), familial incarceration, and combinations of social roles.ResultsFamilial incarceration was associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms and psychological distress. Women that were employed only typically had improved psychological adjustment compared to other role combinations; yet, employment did not mute the mental health costs of familial incarceration.ConclusionAfrican American women disproportionately experience the incarceration of family members, and the findings demonstrate that this experience is detrimental to mental health. Though social roles variably provide social, psychological, and economic resources to cope with familial incarceration, results show that the mental health costs of incarceration are generally consistent across role combinations. The expansive criminal justice system holds large implications for the well‐being of populations at the intersection of race, gender, and social roles.

Mentoring Vulnerable Youth in One of America’s Most Dangerous Cities: From Violent Streets to University Classrooms

Using rich narratives provided by youth, this research examines the holistic role of mentors in the lives of young people coming of age in an impoverished and dangerous context (n = 44). Mentees experienced household adversities (e.g. parental separation, substance abuse, familial incarceration) and community violence (e.g. neighborhood shootings, gangs, and assaults). Mentors provided emotional support, educational support, and protection from harm. In addition, youths experienced mentor versatility. Mentors were perceived as effective in aiding the youths’ resilience and at helping them navigate multiple levels of stressors and criminogenic conditions.

The Role of Familial Incarceration and Ethnic Identity in Suicidal Ideation and Suicide Attempt: Findings from a Longitudinal Study of Latinx Young Adults in California.

Suicide is a leading cause of death among young adults; however, contextual risks and cultural factors are rarely studied in the context of ethnic minority suicidal ideation (SI) and suicidal attempt (SA). This study assessed the association between familial incarceration and suicide behaviors and examined ethnic identity as a potential moderator. Data from a longitudinal study of health among Hispanics (n=1,094) in California were used to test associations between familial incarceration, ethnic identity, and SA and SI, adjusting for demographic factors and covariates. Approximately 18% and 8% of respondents reported SI and SA, respectively. Compared to no incarceration, or the incarceration of a relative, parental incarceration was associated with higher odds (AOR: 2.09, 95% CI: 1.23-3.34) of SI whereas higher affective ethnic identity reduced the odds (AOR: 0.52, 95% CI: 0.31-0.89) of SA. Ethnic identity moderated the association between parental incarceration and SI (AOR: 0.33, 95% CI: 0.13-0.79). Incarceration of a family member can set the stage for exclusion from critical institutions and can have long-term consequences for adult mental health. Promoting a positive ethnic identity may be a promising prevention strategy that could bolster resilience among at-risk, urban minority youth.

How Incarceration Influences Native-Born Black Men's Risk of Obesity.

To build upon research that investigates the health significance of familial and former incarceration with special emphasis on obesity risk among native-born Black (ie, African American) men. We analyzed data from the 2001-2003 National Survey of American Life (NSAL), focusing on native-born Black men (n=1140), the demographic group that bears the brunt of mass incarceration. The outcome of interest was obesity as measured by body mass index (BMI)>30. Principal predictors were familial and former incarceration, and their statistical interaction. In survey-adjusted binomial logistic regression models, familial incarceration appeared an unimportant predictor; whereas, former incarceration associated with a lower risk of obesity. However, former incarceration modifies the association between familial incarceration and obesity, such that native-born Black men experiencing both familial and former incarceration were significantly more likely to be obese. Public health researchers should treat former incarceration with greater care in studies including native-born Black men because time spent incarcerated has lingering physical health significance.

The Protective Impact of Immigrant Concentration on Juvenile Recidivism: A Multilevel Examination of Potential Mechanisms

Both macro- and micro-level research suggests that immigration is unrelated or negatively associated with crime and violence. However, far less research has examined the indirect effects of immigrant concentration on individual-level criminal behavior, and specifically with respect to persistent offending. Moreover, researchers have only begun to explore the mechanisms that link neighborhood context, such as immigrant concentration, to individual outcomes. Thus, identification of the potential mechanisms that may mediate the effect of immigrant concentration on offending remains little understood. Using a unique sample of more than 26,000 youthful offenders from the state of Florida, multilevel structural equation modeling (MSEM) analyses reveal that family structure, familial incarceration, and social ties partially mediate the effect of immigrant concentration on youth reoffending. Findings and implications from the present study are discussed, along with policy implications and future directions for research in this area.

Imprisoned by Empathy: Familial Incarceration and Psychological Distress among African American Men in the National Survey of American Life.

The stress process model predicts that current incarceration of a family member should damage the health status of the inmate's relatives. We address this prediction with data from the National Survey of American Life, focusing exclusively on African American men (n = 1,168). In survey-adjusted generalized linear models, we find that familial incarceration increases psychological distress, but its effect attenuates ostensibly after controlling for other chronic strains. Familial incarceration remains statistically insignificant with the introduction of mastery and family emotional support and their respective interactions with familial incarceration. However, a statistical interaction between familial incarceration and former incarceration reveals that levels of psychological distress are significantly higher among never-incarcerated respondents whose family members are incarcerated but significantly lower among formerly incarcerated respondents whose family members are incarcerated. We conclude that familial incarceration's influence on black men's mental health status may be more complex than extant theory predicts.

Incarcerated Mothers and Fathers: A Comparison of Risks for Children and Families

Abstract: The current study investigates differences between inmate mothers’ and fathers’ reported rates of incarceration for family members, adult children, predictors of adult children’s incarceration, and living situations of minor children. Participants included 6,146 inmates who participated in the U.S. Department of Justice Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities. Mothers were 2.5 times more likely to report that their adult children were incarcerated than fathers; mothers’ regular drug use predicted adult child incarceration. Incarcerated mothers reported greater familial incarceration and their minor children were more likely to be in foster and other nonfamilial care situations than incarcerated fathers. As risk factors accumulated, there were greater rates of adult child incarceration, with a more obvious relationship for mothers.