The Land of the Free is the home of 25% of the total worldwide prisoners according to the American Civil Liberties Union. The incarceration rate in the United States started to increase exceptionally in the past 30 years as one of the measures against the proclaimed “Drug War” by United States President Richard Nixon. As a result, 756 in every 100,000 Americans are behind bars (Webb, 2009). The development of the punitive system, particularly prisons, has resulted in a progression of collateral problems that have been the focus of numerous studies. Wakefield and Wildeman conducted research on the effects of incarceration in families, titled Children of the Prison Boom (2013). Of special concern were the children of incarcerated individuals, …show more content…
According to Wakefield and Wildeman, paternal incarceration is associated with substantially elevated risks of child homelessness. Their 2014 study revealed that the link between incarceration and homelessness was due to the destabilization of already fragile household capital, and the decrease of children’s access to educational and informal supports. Moreover, in a recent study from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods PHDCN, it was revealed that children of incarcerated parents demonstrate 30% higher incidence of behavioral problems, such as social withdrawal, nervousness, irritability, and difficulty in concentrating. Furthermore, this population also experiences 44% more external behavioral problems, such as defiance, physical aggressiveness, and disruptiveness. Let alone, the rate of single mothers was matched with the increasing number of male prisoners, in accordance to Mauer (1999). In addition, the link between incarcerated maternal and paternal figures and child mortality is also identified, according to Wakefield and Wildeman (2014). Families with limited access to technologies and information, such as ones with incarcerated members, are likely to increase their infant mortality risk by 58%, as stated by the same authors. The book Children of the Prison Boom demonstrates mass incarceration is massively disruptive at the core of …show more content…
Employment statistics reveal a fundamental part of a nation’s financial health, as stated in a report authored by the Charitable Pew Trust. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for the first trimester of the year 2016 in the United States is at 4.9%. These percentages do not include the incarcerated population, which is 1.5 million people as of 2014, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. For this reason, the authors of Collateral Costs agree that the yearly unemployment rates result in an incomplete picture. Collateral Costs explains that besides encountering employment discrimination due to the criminal records stigma, formerly incarcerated individuals also confront a competitive market because sentence time reduces possible work experience opportunities. Consequently, the report by the Charitable Pew Trust reveals that post-incarceration workers reduce their earnings by 52%, 44%, and 41%, for White, Black and Hispanic populations respectively. Not to mention, 1 in every 8 incarcerated prisoner does not have a high school education or equivalent, which impacts his or her labor prospects, according to the same report. It is appropriate to highlight that the Justice Policy Center (2008) affirmed that employment reduces a former prisoner’s likelihood of re-offending. But granted these circumstances, it is almost unattainable for formerly incarcerated individuals
Murray, J. (2005). The effects of imprisonment on families and children of prisoners Retrieved from http://www2.bgsu.edu/downloads/cas/file77089.pdf
According to the prior summarized research, the origin of the supermax facility is established. It is identified that these facilities were necessary to create order among inmates in the general prison population. Differing characteristics of inmates can potentially create havoc and chaos in prison environments. Although there are inmates who request placement in supermax facilities, inmates who do not choose to be housed in these facilities demonstrate certain constant factors seen among the population in supermax facilities. It is understandable that gang affiliation, mental illness, and specialized needs for protective custody lead to placement in supermax facilities due to the protection of correctional officers and staff, along with the
American prisoners receive free medical attention, housing, meals, utilities, use of exercise equipment, and laundry services. The cost of these services amount in the billions of dollars a year and government budgets are straining to accommodate these fiscal requirements. “There’s special urgency in prisons these days,” “As state budgets get constricted, the public is looking for ways to offset the cost of imprisonment” (Brown). This economic concern requires work programs to aid in the relief of financial burdens incurred from convicted criminals. Once found guilty of a crime the prisoner needs to take responsibility for the costs incurred. Prison labor has evolved from the day of hard labor, breaking rocks, and making license plates to manufacturing, data processing, electronics, farming, construction, and even customer relations. Prisoners in America need to work, not to be confused with slavery, for economical, recidivism, and responsibility concerns. Work programs are crucial if taxpayers are tired of paying the cost for prison's financial liability, prisoner's family support, and release support programs.
Travis, Jeremy & Waul, Michelle. (2003). Prisoners Once Removed: The Impact of Incarceration and Reentry on Children, Families, and Communities. The Urban Institute Press: Washington, D.C.
The article explains that the majority of women involved in the prison system are poor single mothers. The same majority of poor single mothers are all serving sentences for nonviolent drug-offenses. This article as well as many others, place a significant amount of blame for the increasing prison population on the War on Drugs. The authors explain the correlation between poverty and the implication of mandatory drug sentencing laws.
Studies show parental incarceration can be more traumatic to students than even a parent's death or divorce, and the damage it can cause to students' education, health, and social relationships puts them at higher risk of one day going to prison themselves.(Sparks,
Upon release, previously incarceration individuals find themselves subject to what is known as collateral consequences. Societal and policy consequences that extend beyond the criminal justice system and long after incarceration. With consequences touching every aspect of their life from; housing, family composition, education and employment opportunities. As one becomes incarcerated they better understand racial, economic and behavioral-health barriers within yet at the time of parole many do not have an awareness of the negative and disproportionate treatments associated with life post-conviction and incarceration (Pettus-Davis, Epperson and Grier, 2017).
Today, half of state prisoners are serving time for nonviolent crimes. Over half of federal prisoners are serving time for drug crimes. Mass incarceration seems to be extremely expensive and a waste of money. It is believed to be a massive failure. Increased punishments and jailing have been declining in effectiveness for more than thirty years. Violent crime rates fell by more than fifty percent between 1991 and 2013, while property crime declined by forty-six percent, according to FBI statistics. Yet between 1990 and 2009, the prison population in the U.S. more than doubled, jumping from 771,243 to over 1.6 million (Nadia Prupis, 2015). While jailing may have at first had a positive result on the crime rate, it has reached a point of being less and less worth all the effort. Income growth and an aging population each had a greater effect on the decline in national crime rates than jailing. Mass incarceration and tough-on-crime policies have had huge social and money-related consequences--from its eighty billion dollars per-year price tag to its many societal costs, including an increased risk of recidivism due to barbarous conditions in prison and a lack of after-release reintegration opportunities. The government needs to rethink their strategy and their policies that are bad
It is undeniable that mass incarceration devastates families, and disproportionately affects those which are poor. When examining the crimes that bring individuals into the prison system, it is clear that there is often a pre-existing pattern of hardship, addiction, or mental illness in offenders’ lives. The children of the incarcerated are then victimized by the removal of those who care for them and a system which plants more obstacles than imaginable on the path to responsible rehabilitation. Sometimes, those returned to the community are “worse off” after a period of confinement than when they entered. For county jails, the problem of cost and recidivism are exacerbated by budgetary constraints and various state mandates. Due to the inability of incarceration to satisfy long-term criminal justice objectives and the very high expenditures associated with the sanction, policy makers at various levels of government have sought to identify appropriate alternatives(Luna-Firebaugh, 2003, p.51-66).
Wacquant argues “Confinement is the other technique through which the nagging problem of persistent marginally rooted in unemployment, subemployment, and the precarious work is made to shrink on —if not disappear from — the public scene” (60). By forcing people to work unreliable jobs, America is also forcing people into prison. He also states “The vast majority of the occupants of county jails do come from the ranks of the “working poor,” that fraction of the working class that does not manage to escape poverty although they work, but who are largely ineligible for social protections because they work at poverty-level jobs” (70). This endless circle of unjust treatment of the poor has dire consequences. People released from prison are kept of heavy surveillance and are unable to grab hold of a job because employers will not hire ex-convicts. They also lose all ability to receive any further pubic assistance. In response, their children are led down the same path of little to no education, which leads to unstable working conditions, which leads to
Canada reached its utmost population rate in 2013, with 15,000 inmates; this is a drastic increase of 75% in the past decade. Incarceration rates are rapidly increasing as crime rates decrease. Upon release, former prisoners have difficulty adapting into society and its social norms. Criminologist, Roger Graef states that, "the vast majority of inmates, the loss of local connections with family, job, and home sentences them again to return to crime." Prisoners often result in lethargy, depression, chronic apathy, and despair, making them ultimately rigid and unable to assimilate back into the public. Depression, claustrophobia, hallucinations, problems with impulse control, and/or an impaired ability to think, concentrate, or remember are experienced by prisoners who are isolated for a protracted amount of time; research has indicated that prisons can cause amenorrhea, aggressive behaviour, impaired vision and hearing, weakening of the immune system, and premature menopause. With the lack of system programs, the constant violence, and the social isolation, the prison system fails to prepare prisoners for reintegration to society. Prisons do not provide the proper structural functionalism to rehabilitate former long-term prisoners into society.
According to Farrington, Murray, and Sekol (2012), children are likely to experience stressful life events before and after parental incarceration. Following incarceration, children can experience problems like, but are not limited to, traumatic separation, reduced income, and loneliness (Farrington et. al. 2012). Farrington, Murray, and Sekol found that the circumstances under which children experience parental incarceration vary from child to child, but experiencing incarceration can lead to negative changes in antisocial behavior in children. Dallaire, Thrash, and Zeman, found that incarcerated specific experiences make children more prone to maladjustment than environmental experiences do (2015). Additionally, Borowski, Dallaire, and Zeman studied the effects of maternal incarceration in the context of a child’s socialization, examining emotion socialization of children with incarcerated mothers, finding that higher levels of incarceration-specific risk index predicted low emotional regulation in children (2016).
The challenges of children who grow up with parents whom were incarcerated at some point in their childhood can have a major effect on their life. The incarceration of parents can at times begin to affect the child even at birth. Now with prison nurseries the impregnated mother can keep her baby during her time in jail. With the loss of their parent the child can begin to develop behavioral problems with being obedient, temper tantrums, and the loss of simple social skills. Never learning to live in a society they are deprived of a normal social life. “The enormous increase incarceration led to a parallel, but far less documented, increase in the proportion of children who grew up with a parent incarcerated during their childhood” (Johnson 2007). This means the consequences of the children of the incarcerated parents receive no attention from the media, or academic research. The academic research done in this paper is to strengthen the research already worked by many other people. The impact of the parent’s incarceration on these children can at times be both positive and negative. The incarceration of a parent can be the upshot to the change of child’s everyday life, behavioral problems, and depriving them a normal social life.
There is a plethora of data within the last 10-15 years that repeatedly show family, friends, and entire communities or neighborhoods being drastically affected by the consequences of mass incarceration as well. The data focus primarily on the effects on the partners, children, families, friends, and caregivers of those incarcerated; particularly the economic, emotional, and personal relationships between incarcerated individuals and those the data also
Parental incarceration can affect many aspects of a child’s life, including emotional and behavioral well-being, family stability and financial circumstances. The growing number of children with an incarcerated parent represents one of the most significant collateral consequences of the record prison population in the U.S. Children who have an incarcerated parent require support from local, state, and federal systems to serve their needs. Kids pay both the apparent and hidden costs while their loved one serves out sentences in jail or prison.