Brief
In making the transition back to the community, many will turn to their families—spouses, parents, siblings, grandparents, and others—for some kind of assistance. These family members become the “front line” of reentry, providing former inmates with critical material and emotional support including shelter, food, clothing, leads for jobs, and guidance in staying sober or avoiding criminal behavior.
This paper, part of Vera’s Issues in Brief series, looks at Project Greenlight and other innovations across the nation to explore how family involvement in reentry may lead to more…
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Journal Article As the male prison population increases, so too does the number of children with fathers in prison. The negative impact of fatherlessness on children has been well documented. While parenting education is often seen as an effective tool to improve the quality of family relationships and foster positive outcomes for children, fathers in prison frequently are ignored or excluded from parenting programs. This mixed method study examined the impact of short term parenting education on fathers in prison who were enrolled in a 3-day parenting class. A simple experimental design was coupled with…
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Journal Article The articles in this issue of The Prevention Researcher highlight findings about the involvement of teen fathers in the lives of their children and the link between teen fatherhood and delinquent behavior. Studies cited in the journal indicate that father involvement depends primarily on the relationship between the child's parents. Fathers who resided with their child's mother or who maintained a good relationship with her had greater contact with their children. Other influences included ethnocultural socialization, family history, relationships with the mother's family, and welfare reform…
A simple, age-appropriate story about a young teddy bear on visiting day helps young children overcome feelings of abandonment by helping them understand why people are in prison, giving them ways to stay connected with their parent, and assuring them that incarceration is not their fault.
The thesis of this study is that children and adolescents who grow up in intact families are generally less likely to commit acts of delinquency than children and adolescents who grow up in non-intact families, which, for the purposes of this paper, are defined as single-parent families, blended or stepfamilies, and no-parent families. Using both a bivariate regression model and several multiple regression models, the paper sets out to test the hypothesis that family structure has a significant impact on the level of risk of adolescent delinquency even when controlling for other factors…
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Journal Article We identify explanatory risk variables associated with the co-occurrence of two problem behaviors: juvenile offending and adolescent fatherhood. Data were gathered from a 5-year prospective, longitudinal study of 531 incarcerated juvenile offenders as they transitioned from youth correction facilities back into the community. Of the total sample, 125 (28.3%) of the male participants reported fatherhood before their 20th birthday. Six risk variables were predictive of adolescent fatherhood in this sample: (a) gang member, (b) resided with non-biological parent as primary caretaker, (c) low SES…
In this paper, we document the continuing decline in employment and labor force participation of black men between the ages of 16 and 34 who have a high school education or less. We explore the extent to which these trends can be accounted for in recent years by two fairly new developments: (1) the dramatic growth in the number of young black men who have been incarcerated and (2) strengthened enforcement of child support policies. We use micro-level data from the Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Groups, along with state-level data over time on incarceration rates and child…
This fact sheet includes a set of website links designed to assist individuals in mentoring efforts targeting children of prisoners. Links are provided for information on the Mentoring Children of Prisoners Initiative; general mentoring resources; and children of prisoners related resources, including links for information on partnerships, grants, faith-based programs, publications, legal advice, and training; and grant writing tutorials.
This resource profiles the experiences of efforts in nine states to provide mutual self-help parent support groups to fathers, grandparents raising grandchildren, icarcerated parents, parents raising children with special needs, parents in recovery, and rural parents. The document describes the contextual factors these groups face, and provides information on the different strategies states used to best meet the needs of families. Some strategies worked well in certain states and not as well in others. Geographic, demographic, and cultural variables impact service delivery. A range of…
Brief
The Amachi initiative was implemented in Philadelphia to reduce risks for children of incarcerated men and women. Research has found that these children are vulnerable because of the instability of their living situation as well as the feelings associated with having a parent in prison. Depression, poor academic achievement, substance abuse, and juvenile delinquency are more likely among the children of incarcerated parents than in the general population. Amachi seeks to provide a positive influence in these children's lives with adults recruited from faith-based communities. Big Brothers Big…
