Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Legal and Constitutional Affairs
Issue 22 - Appendix B - Appendix 5900-2.40/L1-C-15, 22 "11"
Note:
The following appendix provides answers to a question raised by Senator Milne at
the October 28 meeting of the committee.
For the complete evidence of that meeting, refer to Issue No. 17.
Appendix 5900-2.40/L1-C-15, 22 "11"
At long last, I am writing to respond to a request made by Senator Milne during my testimony some weeks back.
The question concerned a claim I made in my testimony, that children of incarcerated parents are more likely than other children to wind up incarcerated themselves. Senator Milne asked if I could forward to her any studies that support this claim. This claim is made in many published articles and books, and I think it is fair to say that many students of criminal law and criminology take it for granted. But when I went about trying to pull materials together to forward to the Senator, I was surprised to find that there is very little hard data to support this claim. Indeed, when I located the claim in a number of books and reports and followed the research trail indicated in the footnotes, I ultimately came to the same place – citation to work that did not support the claim at all.
That said, I have managed to pull together a few sources which do support the relationship between parental incarceration and the eventual incarceration of their children (although as you will see, there is much work that remains to be done). I have attached a number of documents, which I explain below:
The first is a paper by Christopher Wildeman from the University of Michigan, entitled Paternal Incarceration and Children’s Physically Aggressive Behaviors: Evidence from Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing studies. I corresponded with Professor Wildeman, and here is what he said about this paper:
In this paper, I show two things. First, this paper presents by far the strongest empirical test of the relationship between paternal incarceration and boys’ physical aggression to date. The results suggest big, robust effects. since physical aggression even at an early age is a good predictor of future criminality. Second, the paper shows that these effects are constrained ONLY to boys whose fathers were not incarcerated for a violent crime. (not surprisingly, most of these incarcerations were because of drug-related crimes.) so based on this analysis, one could tentatively state that locking people up for a long time based on nonviolent drug crimes could actually have the most negative effects on the next generation.
2. Second, I am attaching a paper by Roettger and Swisher of Bowling Green University, entitled Examining Racial Variations in the Associations of Father’s History of Incarceration and Son’s Delinquency and Arrest.
3. I am attaching a newsletter from the British Columbia Social Workers’ Association. It contains two short articles that will be of interest (at pp. 8-9, & p.18). They were both written by Shawn Bayes, the Executive Director of the Elizabeth Fry Society of Greater Vancouver. I spoke with Ms. Bayes and some of her colleagues and they tell me that this is an issue of central importance to their organization. Because they are in Canada, Senator Milne may want to follow-up with Ms. Bayes directly to discuss in more detail the issues relating to children of incarcerated parents. Here is her contact information:
Shawn Bayes
Executive Director
Elizabeth Fry Society of Greater Vancouver
237 East Columbia,
New Westminster, BC V3L 3W4
Telephone: 604.520.1166 / Fax: 604.520.1169 shawn.bayes@elizabethfry.com
4. Finally, I strongly recommend a book by Nell Bernstein called All Alone in the World: Children of Incarcerated Parents. Bernstein, a journalist, systematically examines the effects on children when their parents are arrested, sentenced, incarcerated, and released. She writes movingly of the effects on grandparents (who often have custody of the children during the parents’ prison term), and of the effects of foster care on those children without anyone to care for them. Her final chapter, called "Legacy," speaks directly to the issue Senator Milne asked about. This is by far the best book I have read on the topic and is required reading for anyone concerned about the children of incarcerated parents.
I hope that some of this will be of interest to the Senator. If I can be of any further assistance to her or to you, I hope you will not hesitate to let me know.
All best
Sharon Dolovich