Jailed Parents and their Young Children: Residential Instability, Homelessness, and Behavior Problems

Muentner, Luke; Holder, Nicole; Burnson, Cynthia; Runion, Hilary; Weymouth, Lindsay; Poehlmann, Julie

doi:10.1007/s10826-018-1265-3

Cited by 30 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…When a father is incarcerated, their children are more likely to experience elevated externalizing and internalizing behavior problems (Geller et al, 2012), lower academic achievement (Turney & Haskins, 2014), and adverse childhood experiences (Murphey & Cooper, 2015) compared to children who have never experienced paternal incarceration. Additional hardships for children with incarcerated parents include residential instability (Muentner et al, 2019) and decreases in social support (Nesmith & Ruhland, 2008). Certainly, in instances of domestic violence, abuse, or neglect, the removal of a father from the home may have benefits that ameliorate risk (e.g., Wakefield & Wildeman, 2013;Wildeman, 2010), but overall, incarceration is more likely to harm than help children (Eddy and Poehlmann-Tynan, 2019).…”

Section: Paternal Incarcerationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Data for this study come from a larger project with 165 incarcerated parents (both fathers and mothers), 86 caregivers, and 86 children (e.g., Muentner et al, 2019;Poehlmann-Tynan et al, 2017). Our subsample includes children who had a father in jail and hair cortisol and cortisone data (a proportion of children had missing data on these variables because their home visit occurred before hair data collection procedures were approved by the IRB, because they did not assent, or because they had shaved heads).…”

Section: Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Getting under the skin: Physiological stress and witnessing paternal arrest in young children with incarcerated fathers

Muentner

Kapoor

Weymouth

et al. 2021

Developmental Psychobiology

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U.S. jails see nearly 11 million annual admissions, rates that disproportionately affect men of color-more than half of whom are fathers. An estimated 7% of U.S. children experience the incarceration of a parent, increasing their risk for poor developmental and health outcomes. Although stress processes are often suggested as an underlying mechanism linking paternal incarceration to child well-being, few studies have examined such links. To study how witnessing a father's arrest prior to incarceration in jail relates to children's stress processes, we collected data on 123 individuals from 41 families with young children whose father was in jail, including collecting hair from 41 children, and analyzed their cumulative stress hormones, cortisol, and cortisone.Results indicate that children had higher cumulative stress hormone concentrations when they witnessed their father's arrest. Moreover, there was evidence of a blunted stress reaction in children who witnessed the arrest and who also had high levels of ongoing behavioral stress symptoms, similar to findings in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder studies. Long-term exposure to stress can have deleterious effects on children's brain development, further increasing risk for developmental psychopathology.Findings have implications for criminal justice approaches that safeguard children during parental arrest.

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Section: Paternal Incarcerationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Getting under the skin: Physiological stress and witnessing paternal arrest in young children with incarcerated fathers

Muentner

Kapoor

Weymouth

et al. 2021

Developmental Psychobiology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The sample was drawn from a larger multi-method, multi-respondent study of incarcerated parents with children between 2 and 6.5 years of age (mean = 4.1 years, SD = 1.3; (see [ 62 , 63 ]). From the larger study, 86 fathers were Black or biracial, with biracial fathers identifying as Black and one other race.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“When She Says Daddy”: Black Fathers’ Recidivism following Reentry from Jail

Thomas

Wirth

Poehlmann

et al. 2022

IJERPH

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We report on the findings of a mixed methods longitudinal study of 84 African American fathers of young children who were enrolled into the study during the father’s jail stay. Participants were assessed using interviews, self-report measures, and administrative records on frequency of father–child contact, father–caregiver relationship quality, family support, paternal pre-incarceration employment, fathers’ plans to live with the child upon reentry, history of substance abuse, and new convictions one year following release from jail. Qualitative analysis revealed three primary identities of fathers during incarceration: father as nurturer, father as protector, and father as provider. Qualitative analysis of interview data detailed the ways in which the context of incarceration and the presence of the criminal justice system interacts with these identities to impact family structure, parent–child visits, plans for release, and motivation for desistance. Quantitative analysis indicated heterogeneity among fathers, with links between parent–child contact and desistance conditional on fathers’ plans for coresidence with children as well as family support and relationship quality. Taken together, the findings highlight the strengths of African American fathers and their families despite the risks associated with incarceration, including the importance of family support and children as motivation for desistance. The results have implications for how the justice system weighs the bidirectional influences of fathers and families.

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“…Research is sorely lacking on how housing instability beyond homelessness can lead to incarceration. One retrospective study found that incarcerated populations experienced significant residential instability prior to detention, which illustrates the pathway from housing instability into first incarceration (Muentner et al 2019). Yet the strongest evidence comes from studies of recidivism showing that unstable housing after incarceration increases the likelihood of reoffending and thus reincarceration (Clark 2016;Jacobs and Gottlieb 2020;Steiner, Makarios, and Travis 2015).…”

Section: Monetary Sanctions and Housing Instabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%