Recidivism Deleterious Effect on Children

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them. Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord

(Ephesians 6:4).

Murray, Farrington, and Sekol hypothesized children’s antisocial behavior, poor performance in school, and behavior problems are increased by parental incarceration.[1] In the United States jails, the availability of parenting services is intermittent, and those used appear to have no empirical foundation. However, ongoing attempts are being made to create and rigorously evaluate prison parenting services that meet parents and their families' specific needs in prison.

The authors’ findings hypothesized that parental incarceration might cause increases in children’s problem behaviors such as antisocial behavior, but not mental health problems, drug use, or poor educational performance. This study suggests new studies are needed that are specifically designed to investigate the effects of incarceration on families and children.

This article reviewed the potential harm of millions of children affected by parental incarceration, and the cost and benefits of incarcerating offenders require exhaustive investigation to determine its effectiveness.[2] Children experience parental incarceration under different circumstances, and their reactions to the event might vary according to which parent is incarcerated. For example, prior living arrangements, the quality of parent-child relationships before the incarceration, the child’s age at the time of incarceration, the nature and length of the sentence, alternative care arrangements, contact with the incarcerated parent, and how other family members cope with the event should be considered when researching the effects of parental incarceration.[3]

Research on the effects of parental divorce on children is much more advanced than research on parental incarceration. The article utilized studies from divorce literature to capture themes that may apply in this study.[4] The authors conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to summarize evidence on questions like the following. “To what extent is parental incarceration associated with children’s later antisocial behavior, mental health problems, drug use, and poor educational performance?”[5]

This study discovered with a high degree of certainty that children with incarcerated parents are at increased risk for antisocial behavior compared with their peers. In addition, a limitation regarding this study was that relatively little is known about the causal effects of parental incarceration on children.[6] The evidence base is too weak to draw firm conclusions about the kinds of interventions that might be most effective for children with incarcerated parents.[7] The article suggested that intervention programs should be designed based on evidence regarding mediating mechanisms related to parental incarceration and youth problem behavior.[8]

[1] Joseph Murray, David P. Farrington, and Ivana Sekol, “Children's Antisocial Behavior, Mental Health, Drug Use, and Educational Performance after Parental Incarceration: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.,” Psychological Bulletin 138, no. 2 (2012): 175. [2] ibid., 175. [3] ibid., 172. [4] ibid., 179. [5] ibid., 175. [6] ibid., 180. [7] ibid., 193. [8] ibid., 194.