[/caption]Carol Forsloff - Children benefit from the interaction of two parents, and those who have fathers who are in jail lose out over the years. Today is Father’s Day, a time to remember our own fathers but also examine the issue of fathers everywhere, including those who are incarcerated and how the family problems this produces can begin to be repaired.
The United Nations Quaker office examined in 2009 the impact of parental imprisonment on children in general. Specifically the paper highlighted the problems involving paternal imprisonment. While many experts point to the deprivation and emotional impact on children when their mothers are in jail, fewer of them have looked at the father’s influence and what happens when children lose their father figure to imprisonment.
What the Quaker research found was that most of the men in prison are fathers and that nearly half of them had been living with their children before becoming incarcerated. In their father roles they contributed social support, child care and income. 92% of those parents now in prison in 2007 were fathers and approximately 10 million children are affected by either the father or mother being involved with the Criminal Justice System. 1.7 million children have a parent in prison. Of those parents, most of them are men.
The problem is particularly tragic in the United States as the country has the highest incarceration rate in the world, something that has been steadily growing over the past 25 years.
The impact on children of their father’s imprisonment is felt throughout the fabric of their lives. Young children dream of their fathers and fantasize about them coming home. Others wonder about visits and the complications of seeing their fathers over time. As they grow older, the shame and embarrassment becomes an issue too. Many children seek some normalcy, and when asked the kind of job they would like to have one day, they often select some area of law enforcement as a dominant interest.
Many children try to hide the fact their fathers are in jail. The Quaker paper quotes a seven-year-old child describing the bullying that occurs from children at school and how difficult it is to tell responsible adults when this happens. The child said in this instance, “I don’t let them know I care but sometimes I cry on the way home. The teachers don’t know my Dad’s in prison and I don’t want to tell them.”
Children at risk before the father’s incarceration are even more at risk when the father goes to jail. It is then that the Quaker group recommends that society must intervene and give these children attention so the cycle of prison from father to son is stopped. They also point to different parenting strategies and how these can be reinforced between fathers and their children, as having a dad in jail increases the child’s sense of isolation and a power void occurs that makes it difficult to accept the parenting role when the father returns to the home. The vacuum also creates additional difficulties for children in determining their own role in the family, as some children will assume the role of the parent who is gone.
22 percent of imprisoned young fathers only see their children weekly whole a third don’t see them at all. Research indicates this has to do with the complications imposed on visitations, the paper work and administrative details as well as lack of transportation. In other cases it has to do with the father’s having a hard time with adjustment and therefore withdrawing from friends and families.
But things are changing as new programs are being developed to allow fathers in jail parenting privileges and opportunities to be involved in the lives of their children. This is occurring at Angola prison in Lousiana, according to a report in USA Today in 2010. Angola has found its program Returning Hearts as beneficial on many levels, both for the children and fathers. Their program allows fathers to spend eight hours with their children in a carnival-type atmosphere, so they can play and have fun together. The prison officials say, “The ones who were problematic before are not problematic anymore," Cain says. "Prison didn't straighten them out; their kids straightened them out."
Fathers Day is a time to remember fathers everywhere, regardless of where they are because of their relationship with future generations. Happy Fathers Day is the remembrance people say should be given to fathers in prison so they can participate in the rehabilitative function that involvement with their children can produce and end the cycle of one generation following another to prison.
