Children of Parents in Prison: Primed for Crime and Imprisonment?

The purported or desired social benefits of incarcerating any parent in the existing system are rarely worth what it costs their children and other familial members with an assumed exception of people convicted of crimes directly against their children or of great violence and detriment to the society. In Nell Bernstein's novel All Alone in the World: Children of the Incarcerated, one child of an incarcerated mother poignantly states the overlaying theme that touches each of the issues mentioned in this book: "she was sentenced to prison-to be away from her kids and her family. I was sentenced, as a child, to be without my mother". Anthropologist Donald Braman has noted on how the entire family is affected by parents' incarceration; that both the family and community are weakened as prisoners cannot participate in the reciprocal relationships that strengthen family bonds and structure both emotionally and monetarily. This loss of familial ties and subsequent consequences defines the plight of these children.

As future generations grow older, it is important to try and minimize the numbers who will be behind bars. The typical manner in which many mothers and fathers are arrested and sentenced under mandatory minimums initiate a negative relationship between their children and law enforcement, which later grows into distrust for authority. Dr. Steven Berkowitz, a child psychologist, remarks that "watching a parent arrested and taken away is itself one of the most significant traumas a child can experience". Not only do these children begin to distrust the criminal justice and police systems, they may actually begin to believe they belong there. All children are observant and curious, and often kids visiting their parents in prison ask why there are so many black people there. Taking this into consideration with the abundance of authoritative white guards, they may then begin to internalize that they belong in prison over white people. Prison may also be glorified in the eyes of children, furthering their likelihood of ending up there; one father imprisoned was told of his six-year-old's delinquent activity and broke down when he heard that his son was not upset about police interference because he 'wanted to go to prison like his dad'.

This stigma, internalization, and potential idealization involving prison are amidst many factors influencing our future generations of potential prisoners. One of the most reliable indicators of a child's future criminal propensity is whether one of his or her parents have been imprisoned. Children fight against constant reminders of their parents' mistakes, being singled out by police due to family ties or racial background and harassed by peers, family, and teachers who warn them of following in their parents' footsteps. In addition to psychological trauma, these children's lives are directly affected by the changes in their situation, often for the worse. One mother spoke of leaving behind a nine-year-old son who was on the honor roll and strove to maker her proud, coming back a few years later to a sullen teenager who had flunked eighth grade three times in a row. Children are forming their values, morals, and setting the stage for their future when their parental role models and lifelong protectors are taken away from them. They typically are put under the care of family or in the worst case scenario placed into foster care. The foster care system within the United States is overwhelmingly flawed, where children are more likely to be abused, neglected, and increasingly prone to ending up in institutions themselves later in life. The parents' struggles aside, these children are being groomed to not only end up in prison, but to accept it. Policies regarding children specifically must be orchestrated where there are none, and revamped where they are inadequate to allow more parental interaction and supervision in children's lives among many other problematic current policies.

It was shocking to me that grandparents who take in children of incarcerated parents are essentially penalized for their generosity of heart. I decided that I wanted to gain a better grasp on how often this happens, and why it isn't being utilized more readily. This type of foster care was termed 'kinship care' in the literature I read. One main factor mentioned is how difficult it is to track how many children are informally taken in by other family members, and remain uncounted in the statistics. There were several recently published articles on this growing trend, and I learned that kinship care is used and legislated on a state by state basis; some states only recognize relatives as foster caregivers if they become licensed in the same manner as foster parents while other states directly state preference for related foster parents even if they are untrained or unlicensed. The use of kinship foster care has been growing since the mid-1980s when more children were introduced into the foster care system and the prisons were increasingly populated, while the availability of non-related foster homes stayed the same or declined.

Looking on a broad scale, related caregivers or foster parents are often older than non-related foster parents; between 15% and 21% of kinship foster parents are over age 60 compared to 9% or less of non-kin foster parents. They are also more likely to suffer from health problems than non-related foster parents, and significantly poorer than non-related foster parents. One research found that 30% of children in kinship foster care live in households with income levels below the poverty line while only 13% of children live in that situation with non-related foster parents. They are also more likely to be single, and of a lower educational background that non-related foster parents. On the whole, foster families who are related to the children taken in are at a great disadvantage in several aspects than a typical foster family within the system. Since the benefits of keeping a family together are well documented, it would be logical for the state to then provide more aid to these typically older, less healthy, poorer parents. However, related foster parents are offered fewer services, ask for fewer services, and receive less than what they actually ask for. These families are often overlooked, or are unaware that they can receive benefits and monetary subsidiaries to help foster these children.

Why isn't this being supported more heavily when studies have shown that placing children in kinship foster home suffer from less severe developmental and behavioral problems. There are a few problematic issues with this type of foster care; many people and governmental agencies have a problem with paying kinship foster parents, seeing it as a familial obligation. Others often balk at the issue of safety, arguing that children placed into the foster care system may come from backgrounds of abuse and crime that wouldn't be isolated in their parents alone. Foster families that are related to the children they house are often much less supervised, and the birth parents gain greater access to their children. In seeking permanent homes for foster children, those who are placed in kinship homes are less likely to be reunited with their parents, or adopted permanently and consequently stay in the system longer. While it is hard to judge what is a "better" situation, or even what that would mean, it seems that this avenue of foster care should be carefully reviewed & supported on a case by case basis to allow more families to stay intact without going under the poverty line if the imprisonment rates are going to continue rising.

Works Cited

Bernstein, Nell. All Alone in the World: Children of the Incarcerated . New York: New Press, 2005.

Duerr Berrick, Jill. "When Children Cannot Remain Home: Foster Family Care and Kinship Care." The Future of Children 8.1(1998): 72-87.

Geen, Rob. "The Evolution of Kinship Care Policy and Practice." The Future of Children 14.1(2004): 130-149.