This Brief focuses on children with incarcerated mothers, a growing and vulnerable population. It presents five empirical studies, along with an introduction and summary chapter. The five empirical chapters examine new qualitative and quantitative data on: Typical occurrences when pregnant women give birth during incarceration in contrast with the benefits of a prison doula program for mothers and newborns. A mother’s criminal justice involvement for substance abuse crimes and its effects on children’s protective services involvement and foster care placement. How children cope with separation from their mothers because of their incarceration and how that separation continues to affect children's lives following family reunification. Differences in recidivism trajectories between mothers and nonmothers during the 10 years following release from incarceration. Alternatives to incarceration for women in residential drug treatment and how community supervision mandates can affect, contribute to, or extend mother-child separation. The final chapter integrates the information from the empirical studies and summarizes implications for policy and practice. Children with Incarcerated Mothers is an essential resource for policy makers and related professionals, graduate students, and researchers in child and school psychology, family studies, public health, social work, law/criminal justice, and sociology.

No descriptive material is available for this title.

The second edition of this handbook examines family life, health, and educational issues that often arise for the millions of children in the United States whose parents are in prison or jail. It details how these youth are more likely to exhibit behavior problems such as aggression, substance abuse, learning difficulties, mental health concerns, and physical health issues. It also examines resilience and how children and families thrive even in the face of multiple challenges related to parental incarceration. Chapters integrate diverse; interdisciplinary; and rapidly expanding literature and synthesizes rigorous scholarship to address the needs of children from multiple perspectives, including child welfare; education; health care; mental health; law enforcement; corrections; and law. The handbook concludes with a chapter that explores new directions in research, policy, and practice to improve the life chances of children with incarcerated parents. Topics featured in this handbook include: Findings from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study. How parental incarceration contributes to racial and ethnic disparities and inequality. Parent-child visits when parents are incarcerated in prison or jail. Approaches to empowering incarcerated parents of color and their families. International advances for incarcerated parents and their children. The second edition of the Handbook on Children with Incarcerated Parents is an essential reference for researchers, professors, clinicians/practitioners, and graduate students across developmental psychology, criminology, sociology, law, psychiatry, social work, public health, human development, and family studies. “This important new volume provides a cutting-edge update of research on the impact of incarceration on family life. The book will be an essential reference for researchers and practitioners working at the intersections of criminal justice, poverty, and child development.” Bruce Western, Ph.D., Columbia University “The comprehensive, interdisciplinary focus of this handbook brilliantly showcases the latest research, interventions, programs, and policies relevant to the well-being of children with incarcerated parents. This edition is a ‘must-read’ for students, researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers alike who are dedicated to promoting the health and resilience of children affected by parental incarceration.” Leslie Leve, Ph.D., University of Oregon

Based on interviews with nearly seventy youngsters and their mothers conducted at different points of their parents' involvement in the process, the data reveals the experiences of prisoners' children, their family life and social world.

A large proportion--and in many jurisdictions the majority--of incarcerated women are mothers. Popular attention is often paid to challenges faced by children of incarcerated mothers while incarcerated women themselves often do not "count" as mothers in mainstream discourse. This is the first anthology on incarcerated mothers' experiences that is primarily based on and reflects the Canadian context. It is also trans- national in scope as it covers related issues from other countries around the world. These essays examine connections between mothering and incarceration, from analysis of the justice system and policies, criminalization of motherhood, to understanding experiences of mothers in prisons as presented in their own voices. They highlight structures and processes which shape and ascribe incarcerated woman's identity as a mother, juxtaposing it with scripted and imposed mainstream norms of a "good" or "real" mother. Moreover, these essays identify and track emergence of mothers' resistance and agency within and in spite of the confines of their circumstances.

This collaborative work articulates the pressing challenges facing children of incarcerated parents and the diverse family circumstances under which these challenges may be met.

"This book is for counselors, social workers, psychologists and teachers who work with children ages 7-12 who have a parent who is in jail or prison. It is designed so that work can be done individually or in small groups. Each chapter includes a brief literature review, suggestions for additional supports, discussion questions, fictional letters between a boy and his incarcerated father, activities, and reproducible worksheets."--Back cover.

In this volume, prominent scholars from multiple disciplines examine how parental incarceration affects children and what can be done to help them. In the United States today, roughly 1 in 25 children has a parent behind bars. This insightful volume provides an authoritative, multidisciplinary analysis of how parental incarceration affects children and what can be done to help them. Contributors to this book bring a wide array of tools for studying the 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 consequences 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 of mass incarceration for individual children and their families, as well as the future of inequality in the United States, this book will serve as a definitive resource for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers.

Several years ago, Terry Moore, a young first offender at the Florida Correctional Institution for Women, gave birth to a baby whose father was a prison guard. Mrs. Moore won the right to have her baby stay with her in prison until she was released a few months later. Although this incarcerated mother was reunited with her child shortly after giving birth, many inmate mothers are not able to be with or see their children on a regular basis during incarceration. Little is known about this significant and emotionally traumatic problem that confronts nearly two-thirds of incarcerated women. Building upon previous work, this extraordinarily insightful volume offers fresh perspective on issues which surround the separation of inmate mothers and their children, using questionnaire, standardized scales, and individual taped interviews. The author examines issues such as the impact of separation by race; the child's whereabouts at the time of the crime; the child's placement and legal custody during the mother's incarceration; inmate mothers' interest in resuming the parental role after release; child-rearing attitudes of inmate mothers; and the effects of the involvement of drugs on the mothers' relationship with their children. Through interviews with administrators, staff, and inmates, Dr. Baunach provides a detailed, descriptive analysis of the development and operations of programs to retain mother-child bonds in women's prisons in a variety of states. Dr. Baunach discusses day-long/overnight/weekend visitations, foster care placements, and similar problems of the sort that mothers in prison uniquely must face. The work also has a strong policy content, providing unique and practical recommendations for policies and programs benefiting inmate mothers and children that at the same time can be implemented within the framework of current penological practices.

Over the past 15 years much pioneering work has been done on the social demography of young men's sexual activities, contraceptive use, and fertility experiences. But how do men develop and manage their identities in these areas? In Sex, Men, and Babies, William Marsiglio and Sally Hutchinson provide a compelling and insightful portrait of young men who are capable of anticipating, creating, and fathering human life. Based on in-depth interviews with a diverse sample of 70 single men aged 16-30, this is the most comprehensive, qualitative study of its kind. Through intimate stories and self-reflections, these men talk about sex, romance, relationships, birth control, pregnancies, miscarriages, abortions, visions of fathering, and other issues related to men's self-awareness, and the many ways they construct, explain, and change their identities as potential fathers. The interviews also provide valuable insights about how young men experience responsiblities associated with sex and the full range of procreative events. Accessibly written for a wide audience and raising a host of issues relevant to debates about unplanned pregnancy, childbearing among teens and young adults, and women's and children's well-being, Sex, Men, and Babies is the fullest account available today on how young men conceptualize themselves as procreative beings. Lessons from this study can inform interventions designed to encourage young men to be more aware of their abilities and responsiblities in making babies.