When Parents Are Incarcerated
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In the United States today, roughly 1 in 25 children has a parent in prison. This insightful volume provides an authoritative, multidisciplinary analysis of how parental incarceration affects children and what can be done to help them.
The contributors to this book apply a wide array of tools and perspectives to the study of children of incarcerated adults. Sociologists and demographers apply sophisticated techniques for conducting descriptive and causal analyses, with a strong focus on social inequality.
Developmental psychologists and family scientists explore how proximal processes, such as parent–child relationships and micro-level family interactions, may mediate or moderate the effects of parental incarceration. Criminologists offer important insights into the consequences of parental criminality and incarceration. And practitioners who design and evaluate interventions review a variety of programs targeting parents, children, the criminal justice system, and the plight of poor children more broadly.
Given the vast implications mass incarceration has for individual children and their families, as well as for social and economic inequality in the United States, this book will serve as a definitive resource for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers.
Contributors
Preface
Introduction: Invigorating Research and Practice on Children of Incarcerated Parents
Christopher Wildeman, Anna R. Haskins, and Julie Poehlmann-Tynan
- The Demographic Landscape and Sociological Perspectives on Parental Incarceration and Childhood Inequality
Anna R. Haskins and Kristin Turney - Criminological Perspectives on Parental Incarceration
Sara Wakefield and Robert J. Apel - Developmental and Family Perspectives on Parental Incarceration
Julie Poehlmann-Tynan and Joyce A. Arditti - Programs for Currently and Formerly Incarcerated Mothers
Danielle H. Dallaire and Rebecca J. Shlafer - Programs Promoting the Successful Reentry of Fathers From Jail or Prison to Home in Their Communities
J. Mark Eddy and Bert O. Burraston - Children of Incarcerated Parents: Promising Intervention Programs and Future Recommendations
Derrick M. Gordon, Bronwyn A. Hunter, and Christina A. Campbell - How Alternatives to Imprisonment Could Affect Child Well-Being
Signe Hald Andersen, Lars Højsgaard Andersen, Maria Donovan Fitzpatrick, and Christopher Wildeman - Should We Be Intervening Solely (or Even Mostly) on the Basis of Parental Incarceration?
Jennifer L. Noyes, June C. Paul, and Lawrence M. Berger
Conclusion: Steps for Future Interdisciplinary Research and Interventions for Children With Incarcerated Parents
Christopher Wildeman, Anna R. Haskins, and Julie Poehlmann-Tynan
Index
About the Editors
Christopher Wildeman, PhD, is an associate professor of policy analysis and management at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, a visiting fellow at the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and a senior researcher at the Rockwool Foundation Research Unit in Copenhagen, Denmark.
His interests revolve around the consequences of mass imprisonment for inequalities in family life. He is also interested in child welfare, especially as it relates to child maltreatment and the foster care system.
He is the 2008 recipient of the Dorothy S. Thomas Award from the Population Association of America and the 2013 recipient of the Ruth Shonle Cavan Young Scholar Award from the American Society of Criminology.
Anna R. Haskins, PhD, is an assistant professor of sociology at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and an affiliate of the Cornell Prison Education Program, the Center for the Study of Inequality, and the Cornell Population Center.
Her interests are in the areas of educational inequality, social stratification, race and ethnicity, and the intergenerational social consequences of mass incarceration.
Her current research assessing the effects of paternal incarceration on children's educational outcomes and engagement in schooling has been published in American Sociological Review, Social Forces, Sociology of Education, Sociological Science, and Social Science Research.
Julie Poehlmann-Tynan, PhD, is the Dorothy A. O'Brien Professor of Human Ecology and a professor in the human development and family studies department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She is the director of the Center for Child and Family Well-Being, an investigator at the Waisman Center, and an affiliate of the Institute for Research on Poverty.
Through numerous publications and outreach efforts during the past 15 years, she has brought the attention of child development and family studies communities to the issue of incarcerated parents and their children. Her research with children of incarcerated parents has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, and the Department of Health and Human Services.
Dr. Poehlmann-Tynan has served as an advisor to Sesame Street to help develop and evaluate their Emmy-nominated initiative for young children with incarcerated parents and their families called Little Children, Big Challenges: Incarceration.
She has published more than 50 articles in peer-reviewed journals and is the editor of two monographs and a handbook focusing on children with incarcerated parents.
Among the multiple dimensions of collateral damage from the era of mass incarceration we must emphatically include the children whose parents have been sent to prison. This book brilliantly demonstrates the power of a multidisciplinary approach to this compelling task. The authors assess interventions and propose new strategies that could ameliorate the harm that has been caused. This mix of scholarship and outrage constitutes a call to the conscience.
—Jeremy Travis, JD
President Emeritus, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, New York
This book is not only a welcome and timely addition to the literature but a well-argued call for an interdisciplinary approach to the issue of parental incarceration. It invites policymakers and researchers to join forces to address the epidemic of incarceration and its underappreciated impact on children. A wide range of scholars, including criminologists, sociologists, and developmentalists, have contributed to and will benefit from this volume. It should be required reading for state and federal policymakers as a guide to improving the treatment of parents in our judicial system.
—Ross D. Parke, PhD
Distinguished Professor of Psychology Emeritus, University of California, Riverside
