Children with incarcerated parents: everyone has a role.

State and federal prisons held an estimated 721,500 parents of minor children in 1999. These parents held in U.S. prisons had an estimated 1.5 million minor children in 1999, an increase of more than 500,000 since 1991. (1) The above numbers do not reflect the corresponding number of jail inmates who are parents of minor children and the number of minor children affected by having a parent in jail.

As our prison and jail populations continue to rise so do the number of children affected by the incarceration and later release of a parent. Children of incarcerated parents are some of our nation's most at-risk individuals. They face incredible obstacles, which may include poverty and environments where violence and substance abuse are prevalent. Fiscal and other resources are stretched thin for communities working with these children and for correctional agencies trying to maintain safe, secure and humane institutions while preparing inmates to reenter their communities.

Families play a critical role in improving the lives of returning prisoners. Family interventions in institutional settings can ultimately meet the needs of the family, the released inmate and society as a whole. (2) Consequently, enhancing positive contact between prisoners or jail inmates and their children can help reduce recidivism and strengthen communities. Corrections and community programs can maximize their success with offenders and their families by attending to the lessons learned by the NIC Children of Prisoners Project.

NIC Children Of Prisoners Project

In December of 2000, Congress appropriated approximately $4 million to the Department of Justice's National Institute of Corrections (NIC) to work with cooperative agreements to fund private sector or nonprofit groups that have effective, tested programs to help children of prisoners. The three-year period has now ended, and it is time to assess what has been learned from these programs.

Under an agreement with the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA), the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) provided a process evaluation of what is involved in developing and implementing programs that address the needs of children of incarcerated parents. NCCD's focus was to gain a better understanding of the course of action involved in developing, implementing and continuing programs designed to work with children of an incarcerated parent. The goal of the evaluation was to determine the factors that assisted or hindered program development, in order to identify promising intervention approaches. (3)

The results of the evaluation showed that the needs of children who have an incarcerated parent and the resources available in the community must be addressed before programs are implemented. (4) It is unrealistic to expect that groups defined as children of prisoners, caretakers or incarcerated parents have the same issues and resources. There are as many variables among each of these groups as there are reactions of children to having a parent incarcerated.

Parent-Child Connections

Challenges faced by the participating community programs included gaining access to and interacting with correctional institutions. Quite often, a change in staff or administration, either at the community program or at the institution, resulted in a break in understanding the need for correctional/community collaboration or a lack of prioritizing parent-child connections in the institution. To remedy this, some institutions provided cross training in multiple institutions between community-based providers and correctional staff in areas of institutional security and issues facing children of incarcerated parents. This cross training promoted understanding between and connections with community and institutional staff. Moreover, increased understanding and inter-system respect was critical to serving children of incarcerated parents and creating an opportunity for parents to reenter the community successfully, regardless of whether they planned to live with their child upon release.

Bringing together children who lived a significant distance from their incarcerated parent was both a challenge and a resource issue. General resistance from the children's caretakers made recruiting children for these programs difficult. Some caretakers wanted little or nothing to do with the program because they lacked money, time or both. Even in instances in which caretakers embraced the idea of being personally involved with the program, making it a priority in their complicated lives was difficult. In some situations, the caretaker was the other parent, but often the caretaker was an older relative or a foster parent unfamiliar with the possible adverse outcomes (e.g., poor self-concept, developmental regression and somatic complaints (5)) effecting the overall development of children of incarcerated parents. To encourage participation, some programs offered incentives such as a transportation stipend, a meal, utility assistance, and access to job preparation and placement services to alleviate some of these constraints.

Community-Based Program Stability

The issues faced by children with an incarcerated parent are complex. These include poverty, shame, guilt, depression, anxiety and anger. Well-trained staff can help to promote strength and resilience with these children. Recruiting, training and compensating culturally competent and educated staff enhanced the stability of the community programs.

In the NIC Children of Prisoners Program, as well as other programs that have received state, federal or foundation money, sustainable funding remains a significant problem. Partnerships can be difficult to sustain when funding changes. The programs needed to develop collaborations with corrections and other community partners, all with different funding streams and requirements. In addition, the programs needed to be flexible and adapt their goals based on listening to the requirements of their stakeholders--including the children, their caretakers, the incarcerated parents, their collaborative programming partners and corrections professionals.

New grant opportunities often require a change in goals and strategies and include requirements for matching funds. Several community-based programs initially intended to provide a comprehensive approach to serving this population but realized that they needed to focus on specific goals in order to operate within their fiscal and community realities. Large community agencies with different programs operating under one umbrella had better opportunities for continued funding, although with modifications due to funding requirements.

Lessons Learned

Useful strategies for the future emerged based on NCCD's evaluation of NIC's Children of Prisoner Project. The complete report by NCCD is available at http://nicic.org/Downloads/PDF/Library/021000.pdf. For correctional programs considering developing or expanding services to their inmates who are parents, the following should be considered:

Solicit legislative and fiscal support. Programs become vulnerable when staff or administrations change or when institutions are facing budget cuts. Sustaining programs through staff and/or administrative changes ensures that parents in prison are served through well-integrated systemic values, which are reinforced with legislative and fiscal support.

Understand the challenges. Understanding the challenges facing parents in prison/jail, their children and caretakers is critical, and it should be followed by assessing inmate needs and available community resources.

Listen to family concerns. An inmate's family concerns are critical to creating a program that meets the needs of the inmate and the family. In some rare cases, it is important that parents and children are not in contact. Some of these children suffer from mental health issues, and few may have access to services that address their emotional or behavioral problems.

Collaborate with community programs. Addressing the needs of parents in prison/jail, their children and caretakers is not something that correctional staff should or can do alone. Likewise, the best community programs will fall short if they do not work collaboratively with corrections. Collaborating with private and public community programs is critical not only during the parent's incarceration but also in creating a bridge for services for the family upon release.

Plan programming and visiting spaces. A visiting area that is conducive to building a stronger family foundation while safeguarding institutional security should be a consideration in every institution.

Work with this population in an institutional setting. Staff with skills that are specific to working with this population are essential. Appropriate support systems, positive activities and programs that facilitate appropriate contact between children and their incarcerated parent are important to the overall welfare of the family and the parent's later reentry to the community. (6)

Families and Prisoner Reentry

The connection between the successful reentry of inmates who maintained positive family relationships while in prison has been well documented. In one summary, Hairston's (7) review of research on prisoners' family relationships yielded two consistent findings: male prisoners who maintained strong family ties during imprisonment had higher rates of post-release success than those who did not, and men who assumed responsible husband and parent roles upon release also had higher rates of post-release success than those who did not. For female offenders, Dowden and Andrews' (8) analysis identified family process variables as the strongest predictors of female offenders' success. In addition, Slaght (9) found family relationships to have a significant influence on relapse prevention among parolees. (10)

Regular, healthy contact between incarcerated parents and their children can ameliorate children's negative outcomes. In the majority of situations, a good relationship between offenders and their children benefits both parties. Social scientists and practitioners have used the above findings to surmise that treatment programs, which include family members during the offender's incarceration and after the offender's release, produce positive results for prisoners and their families, institutions, and communities. (11)

ENDNOTES

(1) Mumola, C.J. 2000. Incarcerated parents and their children. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics.

(2) Sullivan, E., M. Mino, K. Nelson and J. Pope. 2002. Families as a resource in recovery from drug abuse: An evaluation of la bodega de la familia. New York: Vera Institute of Justice.

(3) Bush-Baskette, S. and V. Patino. 2004. The National Council on Crime and Delinquency's Evaluation of the project development of National Institute of Corrections/Child Welfare League of America's planning and intervention sites funded to address the needs of children of incarcerated parents. Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Corrections. Available at www.nicic.org/Library/021000.

(4) Ibid.

(5) Gabel, K. and D. Johnston. 1997. Children of incarcerated parents. New York: Lexington Books.

(6) Bush-Baskette, S. and V. Patino. 2004.

(7) Hairston, C.F. 1988. Family ties during imprisonment: Do they influence future criminal activity? Federal Probation, 52(1):48-52.

Hairston, C.F. 1991. Family ties during imprisonment: Important to whom and for what? Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, 18(1):87-104.

(8) Dowden, C. and D.A. Andrews. 1999. What works for female offenders: A metanalytic review. Crime & Delinquency, 45(4):438452.

(9) Slaght, E. 1999. Family and offender treatment focusing on the family in the treatment of substance abusing criminal offenders. Journal of Drug Education, 19(1):53-62.

(10) Hairston, C.F. 2001. Prisoners and families: Parenting issues during incarceration. Chicago: University of Illinois at Chicago, Jane Adams School of Social Work.

(11) Bush-Baskette, S. and V. Patino. 2004.

Mary Scully Whitaker is a criminal and juvenile justice consultant with MSW Consulting in Marine on St. Croix, Minn. Maureen Buell is a correctional program specialist with the National Institute of Corrections in Washington, D.C.