Stereotype‐based judgments of child welfare issues in cases of parent criminality

Abstract

Approximately 2.5 million children in the European Union and the United States have incarcerated parents, the vast majority of which are fathers. Three experiments modeled on real legal cases (total N = 881) investigated how parent gender affects decisions regarding contact between incarcerated parents and their children. Results showed that measures facilitating relationship maintenance in relevant domains (sentence length, visitation rights, and alleviating postsentencing conditions) were supported less when they involved a father despite identical prior information about the legal case. Mediation analyses suggest two distinct processes explaining these disparities: participants' crime‐related attributions, and their stereotypical expectations about the different familial roles of mothers and fathers. Practical implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.

Custody Judgments, Ex‐offender Parents, and Best Interests of the Child

“…Our gender effects align most closely with the results of Benbow and Stürmer (2017), who found that compared to female defendants, participants were more likely to attribute a father's criminal actions to internal, rather than situational factors. Benbow and Stürmer concluded that internal attributions affected decision‐making such that participants assigned longer sentences to incarcerated fathers than incarcerated mothers and considered a parent's childcare responsibilities less when sentencing a father than a mother.…”

“…As Hypothesis 5 explains, partial mediation implies that participants allowed factors other than the best interests of the child to shape their reactions to substance‐abusing parents. This is evidence for the role of stigma in custody decision making and is consistent with the possibility that participants made internal attributions for the stigma that they felt for the ex‐offender parents (Benbow & Stürmer, 2017).…”

“…For example, incarcerated mothers receive more parenting resources than do incarcerated fathers (Hughes & Harrison‐Thompson, 2002). Additionally, Benbow and Stürmer (2017) found that participants showed more awareness of and respect for a mother's family responsibilities than for those of a father. Therefore, our results are consistent with the literature showing increased stigma against fathers with a criminal conviction.…”

“…However, the argument that gender creates an additional layer of stigma for ex‐offender parents may cut in the other direction as well because there is evidence that incarcerated mothers face fewer obstacles than incarcerated fathers when it comes to maintaining contact with their children. The U.S. Bureau of Justice reported that incarcerated mothers reported more monthly phone calls and mail correspondence with their children than did incarcerated fathers (Benbow & Stürmer, 2017). Additionally, a 2002 study reported that while 90% of the sampled female institutions offered parenting programs, only half of the sampled male institutions offered such programs (Hughes & Harrison‐Thompson, 2002).…”

“…Focusing on parents who have broken the law, Benbow and Stürmer (2017) presented online case materials describing an accused defendant while varying the defendant's race, gender, and parental status and found that participants assigned longer sentences to an incarcerated father than an incarcerated mother, though gender did not matter when the defendant had no children. Additionally, participants were less supportive of allowing contact between children and incarcerated fathers than between children and incarcerated mothers, even when the authors held constant the nature of the parent–child relationship (Benbow & Stürmer, 2017). These researchers relied on attributional theory to explain their results, arguing that compared to the female defendant, participants were more likely to attribute the male defendant's criminal actions to internal, as opposed to situational, factors.…”