ABSTRACT
Experiencing the incarceration of a family member is now a common experience for some groups in the United States. Estimates vary widely (and all of them are undercounts) but the best available suggest that about 1.9 million children have a parent currently incarcerated and anywhere from 5 to 8 million experienced the incarceration of a residential parent during childhood. Family incarceration experiences are also stunningly racially disparate; a recent estimate found that 44% of Black women and 32% of Black men had a family member incarcerated while only 12% of white women and 6% of white men reported the same. Finally, many more men are incarcerated relative to women, but the number of children with incarcerated mothers has increased substantially and the co-occurrence of father and mother incarceration is an important but relatively unexplored research area.
In this chapter, we review research on incarceration effects on family life. We cover research across a number of domains, including health (e.g., mental health problems, antisocial behavioral problems, infant mortality), economic insecurity (e.g., homelessness, financial hardship, system disengagement), family relationships and dissolution, attainment (e.g., school performance and outcomes), and delinquency. In our review, we attempt to highlight areas of mixed findings (for example, on the impacts of paternal versus maternal incarceration) and gaps in the research literature (for example, little research examines effects on non-parental caregivers, grandparents, or siblings). Finally, we include a discussion of criminal justice reform proposals and the potential (or lack thereof) for various policies to improve outcomes for the families of those bound up in the criminal justice system. In so doing, we hope to provide a broad review of incarceration and family life while also pointing researchers and scholars new to the area towards promising areas to move research forward.
