Improving Academic Outcomes for Children with Incarcerated Parents
One area of challenge for children that has not been adequately addressed is the need for successful intervention models that target academic success—arguably one of the most consistent negative outcomes found in research on this population.
Satisfactory social and educational functioning correlates with positive adult outcomes. Research, however, has found that school-age children of incarcerated parents exhibit problems in school, including poor grades and instances of aggression. Schools in high-poverty, high-crime neighborhoods have more children with parents in prison, but these schools are not necessarily doing more to help them. For example, children are sometimes teased or ostracized by their classmates, or pigeon-holed by teachers as a result of their parents’ incarceration. It is no wonder then that by eight years of age, these children have already found that school is not an affirming place.1 Even when schools offer a safe environment for children, difficulties with stigma and data collection prevent most schools from identifying and targeting these children to receive additional support in school. There is extreme need for better practices in the school setting to create a sensitive atmosphere for children, caregivers, and parents.
Out-of-School Time Services
In the United States, there is only one youth opportunity program that is available to all children and supported with public resources: kindergarten through 12th grade schooling. School is the one place where children—especially those who are poor—have access to the services they need to become successful citizens, family members, and workers. This is particularly true for children whose parent or parents are incarcerated. Unfortunately, what we know about children with incarcerated parents tells us that the vast majority of these youths live in communities of concentrated poverty with schools that are underperforming. Conditions in their neighborhoods often make even the physical journey to school dangerous. Support and opportunities outside of school are even scarcer for children in these impoverished communities. Therefore, an investigation of promising out-of-school models that can increase the educational outcomes of children with incarcerated parents should also be considered a priority.
The Extraordinary Challenge of Incarcerated Fathers
The issue of maternal incarceration is significant and has received substantial attention over the last decade because of the large growth in this population. However, among incarcerated parents, 92% are fathers with nearly half reporting that they lived with their children before going to prison.2 Even when these fathers were not residing with their children, they often contributed income, child care, and social support to their families.3 These fathers are disproportionately from lower income, segregated and disinvested communities, where they will eventually return—too often without the skills they need to become successful husbands, fathers, neighbors and wage earners. Their ongoing struggles render already vulnerable families and communities even further challenged.
Fathering while in prison is not impossible, but incarcerated men face considerable obstacles. About six in ten incarcerated fathers have some kind of monthly contact with their children, but the majority does not receive visits from their children during their incarceration. Because many men in prison report high rates of illegal drug use, violence and mental illness prior to incarceration, many may not know how to be good parents, yet now are willing to make the effort to change. Prison-based parenting programs can help fill this gap. However, these programs, while available in a growing number of institutions, are still not widely offered in men’s prisons. Only 11% of fathers in state prisons report having participated in a parenting or fatherhood class.2
Once released, former prisoners face the challenges of having little money, a lack of social support, and barriers to housing and employment. For many incarcerated and formerly incarcerated fathers, child support debt is one of the most significant barriers they face.
In most states, when parents go to prison, their child support orders are not automatically suspended or reduced. There are states where incarceration is considered “voluntary unemployment,” which does not justify reduction. Debt mounts, often building to thousands of dollars in arrears that low-wage ex-prisoners will likely never be able to pay off. In Maryland, for example, 100% of the currently imprisoned caseload and 97% of the formerly imprisoned obligors owed arrears. The average amount owed by imprisoned obligors was $22,048 (with half owing more than $15,931 in arrearages).4 Unless suspended or reduced during incarceration, accumulated child support debt can interfere with family relationships and undermine a parent’s efforts to retain regular, legal employment, which will be a source of ongoing child support payments upon release from prison or jail.
Fathering and relationship education programs in prisons, opportunities for enhanced child visitation, educational and job readiness programs, substance abuse treatment, and child support debt forgiveness are steps that should be considered to help support these fathers in their parenting and familial roles.
- Sandra Barnhill, “Forever Family Pre-Conference Workshop: Practical Strategies to Connecting Incarcerated Parents and their Children,” 10th Annual Centerforce Inside/Out Summit, San Francisco, CA, October 26, 2009. [↩]
- Glaze and Maruschak. [↩] [↩]
- Creasie Finney Hairston, “The Forgotten Parent: Understanding the Forces that Influence Incarcerated Fathers’ Relationships with their Children,” Child Welfare 77:5 (1998): 617-638. [↩]
- Pamela Ovwigho, Correne Saunders, and Catherine Born, “The Intersection of Incarceration and Child Support: A Snapshot of Maryland’s Caseload,” published by the University of Maryland School of Social Work Family Welfare and Research Training Group, July 2005. [↩]
