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Vol.
7, No. 1
January 2002
Working with
Children with Parents in Prison
There may be as many as 2 million
children in the U.S. who have one or more parents in prison or jail.
That's close to two out of every 100 children (Wright & Seymour,
2000).
Research indicates
these children are traumatized by separation from their parents,
confused by the parent's actions, and stigmatized by the shame of
their parent's situation. Deprived of income and guidance, these
children are vulnerable to poverty, to stressful shifts in caregivers,
separation from siblings, and other family disruptions.
Because of all
of this, the children of incarcerated parents should be of special
concern to North Carolina's child welfare workers. As a state and
a profession, we are more focused than ever on ensuring all children
have a safe, permanent home, one that maintains and promotes their
well-being.
Yet when a child
has a parent in prison, achieving this goal can be especially difficult.
This issue of Children's Services Practice Notes aims to
introduce you to the challenges of working with this population
and to provide you with resources and information to enhance your
work with children and families separated by incarceration.
Contents
For additional resources
on working with parents in prison, please visit the following
web sites:
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Bill
of Rights for Children of Incarcerated Parents created
by the San Francisco Partnership for Incarcerated Parents.
This 12-page document encourages justice and human services
groups to support children of incarcerated parents. The rights
include:
- I have the
right to be kept safe and informed at the time of my parent’s
arrest.
- I have the
right to be heard when decisions are made about me.
- I have the
right to be considered when decisions are made about my
parent.
- I have the
right to be well cared for in my parent's absence.
- I have the
right to speak with, see, and touch my parent.
- I have the
right to support as I struggle with my parent's incarceration.
- I have the
right not to be judged, blamed, or labeled because of
my parent's incarceration.
- I have the
right to a lifelong relationship with my parent.
http://www.cwla.org/programs/incarcerated/billofrights.pdf
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Report: Female Prison Population Grew 757% Since 1977
The number of women in state prisons has grown exponentially in the past three decades, growing at more than twice the rate as the male population, according to a report from the Women's Prison Association “The Punitiveness Report-HARD HIT: The Growth in Imprisonment of Women, 1977-2004." The report found that the female prison population grew 757 percent between 1977 and 2004, while the male prison population grew 388 percent….Women made up more than 10 percent of the prison population in Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Oklahoma, North Dakota, and Hawaii. By contrast, only 3.2 percent of inmates in Rhode Island were women; the report said that the rate of female incarceration has dropped in the Northeast even as it has increased elsewhere in the nation. Nationally, there were 96,125 women in prison in 2004, up from 11,212 in 1977. Most of the increases in female imprisonment can be traced to the war on drugs, the report said. More women are being sent to prison for drug offenses -- notably methamphetamine use -- while convictions for violent crimes have fallen. Experts called for alternative sentencing for female prisoners, including addiction treatment for drug offenders <http://www.wpaonline.org/institute/hardhit/index.htm>
- Meeting the Service Needs of Children of Prisoners. The Federal Resource Center for Children of Prisoners, a project of the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA), works to provide training and technical assistance to professionals and agencies that provide services to children of incarcerated parents. This includes child welfare agencies, criminal justice professionals, childcare and early childhood education providers, community groups, mentoring programs, teachers and schools, and other programs. The center offers training in the form of 90-minute workshops, half-day and 1-day overviews, 2-day intensive training, and a 2-day training of trainers for mentoring programs. Specialized training is available for mentoring programs, afterschool program providers, early childhood education and childcare providers, and juvenile justice, child welfare, corrections, and community corrections programs and professionals. All trainings are provided onsite. Information is available on the CWLA website: ww.cwla.org/programs/incarcerated/cop_training.htm
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IN-SITES – ONLINE ON PRISON RE-Entry. The spring 2005 edition of In-Sites includes stories about a reentry program that focuses on family reunification, how sites reach out to their limited English proficiency populations, and more.
http://www.ncjrs.org/ccdo/in-sites/welcome.html
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- Family Ties, Through Prison Walls, by Chris Dickon (March 21, 2005)
http://www.connectforkids.org/articles/family_through_prison
- Family Support and Incarcerated Parents a resource page from Family Support America.
http://www.familysupportamerica.org/lcenter/showarticle.php?action=view&aid=82&categoryid=34
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-
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"Daddy
Dearest: A Look at Fatherhood"
by Neil Bernstein (2000, Salon Magazine Online), an article
about what it is like to be a child with a parent in prison.
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2000/06//14/prison_dads/index.html?CP=SAL&DN=110
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Family
and Corrections Network
The FC Network offers information, training and technical asistance
on children of prisoners, parenting programs for prisoners,
prison visiting, incarcerated fathers and mothers, etc. Of special
interest are links to books to read with children of prisoners
and an extensive listing of relevant programs in North Carolina
for prisoners and their families.
http://www.fcnetwork.org/
- Incarcerated
Parents and Their Children (the Mumola article
cited in this issue of Practice Notes)
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/iptc.htm
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- Children
of Incarcerated Parents: Research and Resources (Children's
Bureau Express, vol. 5, no. 2, February 2004). http://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/articles.cfm?issue_id=2004-02&article_id=768
- Prisoners Once
Removed: The Impact of Incarceration and Reentry on Children,
Families, and Communities, edited by Jeremy Travis and Michelle
Waul, is available in paperback from the Urban Institute Press
(410 pages, ISBN 0-87766-715-2, $32.50). Order online or call
(202) 261-5687; toll-free 1-877-847-7377. The book documents the
consequences of imprisonment for individual prisoners, their families,
and the communities to which these prisoners return and asks whether
the corrections and health and human services systems can better
serve this growing population.
- Returning
Home: Understanding the Challenges of Prisoner Reentry,
by Christy Visher , Nancy G. La Vigne , Jeremy Travis. (January
01, 2004). Urban Institute. This is the final technical report
for a pilot study of Returning Home: Understanding the Challenges
of Prisoner Reentry. The study examined the process of prisoner
reentry within the city of Baltimore. It involved self-administered
surveys with 324 male and female prisoners. The study's purpose
was both to examine the process of prisoner reintegration in Baltimore;
as well as to test Urban Institute's survey instruments and research
design in preparation for implementation of the study in three
full-study sites. The report's purpose is to inform policymakers
and service providers about how released prisoners navigate these
challenges of reentry.
http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/410974_ReturningHome_MD.pdf
- Baltimore
Prisoners' Experiences Returning Home, by Christy Visher,
Vera Kachnowski, Nancy G. La Vigne, Jeremy Travis. Urban Institute.
(March 15, 2004). http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/310946_BaltimorePrisoners.pdf
- The
Implications of Incarceration for Children and Families
(Data Trends #91), a research summary documenting the harm for
families caused by incarceration. can be downloaded at
http://www.rtc.pdx.edu/pgDataTrends8.shtml
- Family Support
Magazine, Fall 2003 (vol. 22, no. 3). Contains a special section
with articles on supporting families with incarcerated parents.
Features 16 selections that range from research studies to first-person
accounts of the effects of parent incarceration on the family.
Includes descriptions of programs that address a variety of needs.
http://www.familysupportamerica.org/
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