COMMENTARY: Inmates and Their Children

c. 1999 Religion News Service (Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J.) UNDATED _ One of the most profound insights I’ve gained in nearly seven years of full-time prison ministry is an understanding […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

(Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J.)

UNDATED _ One of the most profound insights I’ve gained in nearly seven years of full-time prison ministry is an understanding of the sense of loss and disconnectedness inmates feel with respect to their families. Loved ones prosper or suffer, live or die, largely without the influence, or in some cases even the knowledge, of the incarcerated family member.


In general, the relationships that suffer most are between the inmate and his or her children. For example, one man told me his daughter never saw him outside prison before she was 7 years old. This means that during the formative years of her life, contact between father and daughter was limited to the highly regulated phone calls and family visits that are part and parcel of prison life.

The issues surrounding inmates and their relationships with their children have far-reaching implications for criminal justice policy and society as a whole. A number of studies have shown children of inmates are more likely than others to commit crimes and spend time in prison. With the inmate population in this country set to reach 2 million in early 2000, the magnitude of the problem is larger than we think.

A plethora of initiatives have been developed in recent years that target at-risk youth. They range from church- and community-based mentoring programs such as Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Rites of Passage and 10,000 Mentors, to more innovative approaches leveraging the expertise of inmates and ex-offenders, such as Scared Straight and AMER-I-CAN.

Though they represent a virtual potpourri of program models and strategies, one commonality among them is the failure to link incarcerated parents with their at-risk children. Indeed, most programs of this sort assume the inmate’s incarceration automatically precludes him or her from functioning effectively as a parent.

There are, of course, good reasons for this assumption.

First, incarceration often imposes a physical hardship on outside family members that is difficult to overcome. Most inmates in state prisons, for example, are assigned to facilities located a considerable distance from the inmate’s hometown and are inaccessible by public transportation. Such obstacles are often insurmountable to poor, inner-city families lacking the resources to arrange transportation to and from their loved one’s prison.

Second, the bohemian lifestyle favored by most inmates prior to their incarceration ensures that many of them have little or no relationship with their out-of-wedlock children. Indeed, in the relational dynamics that often accompany such liaisons, it is not uncommon for the children to be used as pawns as the mother of one set of offspring seeks to gain leverage over the other(s).

As a result, both inmate and child are denied access to a relationship vital to the well-being of each.


Third, even assuming reasonable access to their children, most inmates lack the parenting and life-management skills necessary to rear them. Many are themselves the products of dysfunctional homes and have rarely seen a healthy home environment.

Still, despite these problems, there remains a need to link inmates with their children in a formal, structured program that will facilitate their individual growth even as they seek to grow together as a family.

Such a program could use the technologies currently utilized in distance learning and university extension programs, thus satisfying the security concerns of corrections officials and community leaders alike.

At the same time, it would provide both social scientists and public policy professionals with insights that may challenge their assumptions on the efficacy of inmates as parents, particularly if the program design is one that is faith-based.

An increasing number of studies as well as a wealth of anecdotal information demonstrate the positive effects of religious faith on inmates with respect to both adjustment to prison and readjustment to society following release from prison.

A program linking religiously committed inmates with their at-risk offspring might well serve as a pre-emptive strike in heading off the next generation of incarcerated parents.


DEA END ATCHISON

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!