Maternal incarceration: Impact on parent–child relationships

Abstract

Female incarceration is rising steeply in Australia and other high-income countries. The majority of incarcerated women are mothers. Their children represent a particularly vulnerable group, often subject to adverse experiences due to their family’s disadvantaged circumstances involving inadequate housing, food insecurity, poverty, poor health, a lack of personal safety due to violence and resulting trauma. This qualitative study explores parenting experiences of incarcerated mothers separated from their children. Interviews involved 65 mothers in three Australian prisons and 19 stakeholders providing correctional services and support for incarcerated women. Data were analysed using interpretive description. Mothers’ accounts highlighted frustrations resulting from trying to maintain relationships with their children, often exacerbating their separation and compounding parenting difficulties. Two major themes emerged from the data: ‘protecting their children’ and ‘at the mercy of the system’. Mothers described how they tried to protect their children from the consequences of their incarceration, yet many of the correctional system processes and procedures made it even harder to maintain connection. Incarcerated mothers need support in their parenting role. Ideally, this support should commence during incarceration. Further, changes within prison routines could enhance mothers’ efforts to keep in contact with their children, through visits and phone calls.

Identifying and Treating Incarcerated Women Experiencing Substance Use Disorders: A Review

“…24,27 In addition, incarceration presents challenges for maintaining a connection with children and attempting to protect them. 28,29 Maintaining a connection through regular contact with children is critical and protective for mental health issues among incarcerated women, 26 as well as a predictor of successful reunification during community re-entry. 30 While studies of pregnant incarcerated women have found similar issues associated with substance use, trauma, and mental health, 31 these issues also raise concerns for unborn babies and for treatment opportunities during community transition.…”

Process Evaluation of a Prison Parenting Education Program for Women

“…When women are incarcerated, often the most painful and distressing aspects of imprisonment are the stress of separation and concerns about their children, as well as restricted child contact (Baldwin 2017;Fowler et al 2022;Stone et al 2017). For mothers experiencing incarceration, connection with their children may be the only source of hope and motivation (Covington 2007), and parenting education in prison can present as an opportunity for women to maintain relationships or reconnect with their children and family.…”

Motherhood in Alternative Detention Conditions: A Preliminary Case-Control Study

“…Although, as of today, the female population represents a small portion of the total number of incarcerated people in Europe and across the world, this is increasing every year [1]. Many women in detention are mothers and find themselves as the sole caregiver of their children.…”

“…354 of 26 July 1975 allows incarcerated mothers to keep their children with them, under special circumstances, until the age of three. The aim is to preserve the dyadic mother-child fundamental bond from birth [4,5] as both child psychiatrists and other specialists in the international scientific community agree that mothers and children should not be separated in the early years of the children's lives [1,6,7]. However, despite the efforts to make prison nursery sections livable for children, these remain environments that do not match the needs for socialization and psycho-physical development that growth requires [8].…”

“…Second, the negative outcomes for children associated with parental imprisonment have been well documented by researchers [1,12]. Children whose parents are involved in the criminal justice system in the UK, USA, and Canada, are at increased risk of (1) developing behavioral difficulties (e.g., engaging in delinquent behavior) and (2) reporting higher levels of externalizing problems, which can result in aggressive and antisocial behaviors [12][13][14][15].…”