Family Members and Incarceration

¶ … Incarceration on Prisoners Families

There can be little doubt that incarceration will impact on families as well as the prisoner. With more than 1 million women and 6 million men within the correctional system in the U.S. (Clarke and Adashi 923), indicating an exponentially large number of family members being impacted. The family members most impacted are the immediate family; partners, and children, as well as parents, as well as impacting on the wider communities (Braman 5). This paper reviews the problems faced by prisoners' families, focusing on partners and children of those incarcerated.

The impact on partners can be far reaching, especially for partners who met their partners prior to any incarceration. The impacts will be tangible and psychological. Firstly, the incarceration of a partner may create financial hardships, this may be due to loss of income, especially where the prisoner was a major wage earner. When it is remembered that the majority of those incarcerated come from socially disadvantaged background (Pettit 8), and approximately a third of male prisoners and up to half of female prisoners would have been living with children prior to incarceration (Liebling and Maruna 443), this creates a scenario where social inequality and disadvantage may be not only maintained, but also exacerbated with the loss of a wage (Wakefield and Wilderman 134).

The financial pressure may be seen in most families; it is not only the potential loss of wages, but the increased costs which may be incurred. In families with children increased pressures may be present as a parent/caregiver is lost, which may need to be replaced (Comfort 445; Hairston 44). Family and friends may help, but there may also be a requirement for paid childcare. Visiting prisoners, and maintaining contact can also incur costs which may be difficult when budgets were already tight (Comfort 171).

Family members also suffer from the psychological aspects. There is increased pressure due to the change, and in most cases there will be feelings of shame and the associated stigma (Braman 8). This appears to be true for all types of prisoner families, except where the incarceration is due to a political conflict (Comfort 136). The psychological impacts may include not only shock and the experience of the justice system and incarceration process but the additional pressures which are created by the situation and shape the subsequent lives of the family (Braman 5). This is also exacerbated by potential lack of support with the prisoner incarcerated unable to provide the mental of physical presence, and therefore the physicals and psychological support needed by a family (Comfort 184). It may also be argued that incarceration may offer some positive opportunities; for example women who had suffered violence at the hands of their partners may be free of that violence (Comfort 162). However, these are often accompanied by the negative life shaping impacts seen by other families.

The life shaping changes result in many disadvantages for many families, a significant proportion of which already faced higher than average risks to health and wellbeing. Incarceration enhances a number of these risks, especially for children with incarcerated parents (Wakefield and Wilderman 137). Risks include levels of infant mortality as well as inflated levels of homelessness (Wakefield and Wilderman 139). Infant mortality increases by 47% - 49% where a parent is incarcerated.

The potential for homeless increases by an even greater level, but these impacts are not uniform against for all prisoners families; the research surprisingly indicates that for white prisoners there was actually a decreased homelessness risk, of between 15% and 19%, (Wakefield and Wilderman 139). For black families the risk increased by a very large margin; between 138% and 140% (Wakefield and Wilderman 139).