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Children of Incarcerated Parents (New Jersey)

Page history last edited by Erik Snyder 8 years, 9 months ago

Contributor: Max Galuppo

 

 

Goal Statement    


To improve the circumstances surrounding arrest and imprisonment of individuals with children towards the goal of lessening the burden on the children. 

 

 

Scope of the Problem   


One would be hard pressed to find someone who believes the justice system in America works perfectly as it should. While the pitfalls are many and varied there is one that is particularly glaring and that is the plight of children of incarcerated parents. These children face issues including difficulty in school, a high propensity to criminal life themselves, economic hardship and the stigma that comes with a parent being arrested and jailed among other things. One study shows that the incarceration of a father can cause a family’s income to drop as much as 22% as compared to immediately after the father’s release. A father’s incarceration also causes a spike in expulsion or suspension from school, rising from about 4% to nearly 25%, along with overall academic struggles increasing by as much as 50%.[1]  The exact impact of parental incarceration on juvenile arrests or future illegal activity of children is unclear, the research suggests there is a strong correlation. Not only should something be done about these challenges but it is important to remember these are hardships faced by someone who did nothing wrong themselves, their only crime is being the son or daughter of someone who is accused of doing something illegal. 

 

The number of children and parents who face these situations is nothing short of alarming. Estimates vary slightly based on methodology of data collection and how a few terms are defined. One study from the National Resource Center on Children and Families of the Incarcerated at Rutgers University claims that there are roughly 2.7 million children in the United States with at least one incarcerated parent. In terms of those incarcerated, these 2.7 million children translates to 1.2 million prisoners who have at least one child under 17 (legally considered a minor), 120,000 of which are mothers and 1.1 million of which are fathers.[2] In New Jersey there is an estimated 12,301 parents incarcerated.[3] When race is taken into consideration the numbers become even worse. While 1 in 28 children throughout the entire country have an incarcerated parent, 1 in 9 black children find themselves in this situation. This issue is tied intimately to other issues of criminal justice and incarceration such as concepts like the New Jim Crow and the failed War on Drugs. 

 

 

Possible Causes   


Bail Issues and Mass Incarceration 

In New Jersey, nearly three quarters of those in jail are awaiting trial and have not even been formally charged or arraigned. Of these who are their purely for lack of money, roughly 40% owe bail of $2,500 or less. While there is no concrete number on how many of those awaiting trial also have children, it can be expected that there is a significant number. Furthermore, approximately 18% of those in New Jersey jails were arrested for drug charges and 61% were arrested on non-violent charges.[4] 

 

Visitation Issues

Visitation policies are set individually by the administration of each facility in New Jersey and so they vary greatly. This means that those in different facilities will have different opportunities to visit with their children and to different extents, which is also limited greatly by the physical space available. Along with a system that places prisoners far away from their homes this minimizes, not maximizes, contact between parent and child. There is also little infrastructure available for video visitations throughout the state. 

 

Stigmas and Misperceptions 

While the hardships of a loss of income and the loss of companionship and emotional support in the form of a parent are more overt, there are less obvious aspects of an incarcerated parent. For one there is a strong stigma that often follows these children. They can be branded as “guilty by association” and receive treatment as if they were the ones who committed the crime. Social ostracization, lesser expectations from teachers and disconnect with peers due to vastly different lives can create an environment where a child internalizes their issues, devoid of a parent to talk to.[5] These struggles are poorly understood by many school counselors and other social workers and are even considered not as important due to the child being viewed in the parents light.

 

Issues with CP&P 

The determination to place a child out of their home is made entirely by the CP&P, with the courts expressly not able to make decisions regarding this. This allows children to be handled in an overly bureaucratic way which leads to children’s emotional needs not being taken into account.[6] These emotional struggles are often exacerbated by the children poorly understanding the situation and feeling as if they have no one to talk to about it. Case workers who handle these children when they are placed out of the home have little training on how to discuss matters with the children. 

 

 

Notable Organizations   


  • Advocates for Children of New Jersey
  • CASA of New Jersey
  • New Jersey Children’s Alliance 

 

 

Current Policy   


  • Visitation policies in the State of New Jersey are determined on a facility basis and so will differ greatly based on the prison or jail one is incarcerated in. Video visitation policies are also weak. This option is only available at 4 of the 13 prisons throughout the state (Edna Mahan, Garden State Youth Facility, Northern State and Southwoods State) and family members must go to Trenton, Camden or Newark in order to have a video visit. [7]
  • Current policies involving parental rights and the intervention of the Division of Child Protection and Permanency (CP&P) follow a four prong approach and have been determined by court cases. The prongs are criteria that must be fulfilled in order for the termination of parental rights. They are: 1) possible compromises to safety or health of the child 2) unwillingness or inability of the parent to provide a safe and stable home 3) reasonable efforts have been made to work with the parent to correct these issues and 4) “termination will not do more harm than good”.[8] Along with this, policy specifically states that efforts will be made for siblings to remain together and continuity of the child’s life will be of key importance and so home neighborhood placement is given precedence.[9] This is done without any explicit consultation or input from the child. 
  • In 2014, Question 1 was passed by ballot initiative with almost 62% of the vote. This initiative allowed for the right to bail to be denied to certain dangerous individuals pre-trial while authorizing legislative action taken in August to offer non-monetary bail options.[10] A risk assessment must be performed within 48 hours of arrest and the bill also provides for much speedier trials should the person remain in prison before trial.  

 

 

Policy Options Moving Forward   


Community Family Court, Jackson County, Oregon 

The Community Family Court is an alternative to traditional child protective services that are normally used through traditional court systems. It is offered to those parents with admitted drug abuse or addiction problems whose children have become wards of the government. The goal of the program is to put less impact on the children and focus on familial healing and betterment rather than separation and punishment. It functions as a combined effort from several government agencies and the cooperation of some 501(c)3 organizations as well. Those enrolled in the program will often have weekly meetings with a judge, have access to parental counseling and must attend a drug addiction program in a timely manner. [11] Many steps are taken for oversight, including the availability of housing with 24 hour surveillance. Also, judicial involvement includes the ability to alter the program based on individual needs. 

 

The efficacy of the program comes largely from the threat of “sanctions”, or penalties, for lack of compliance and some rewards for following through with program goals. If needed DHS workers can remove the children and place them with foster families who often then mentor the genetic parents and facilitate visitations8. Several of those who have gone through the program have noted that the possibility of these sanctions was a key motivator in their recovery. Researchers have determined that the program has reduced children’s time in foster care by 104 days on average as compared to those in traditional court systems.  It is also estimated that the program, which has been on the scale of approximately 50 families per year, has saved Jackson County on average $5,593 per participant in court and other costs.[12] Ultimately, the Community Family Court program has been very successful in keeping families together and reducing drug abuse in parents.

 

Extended Family Visits, Washington 

Extended family visits are a reworking of long term, private visitations that were formally called conjugal visits. These visitation programs are currently only offered in New York, Washington, California and Connecticut. Prisoners in Washington can apply for these visits that take place in a mobile home that must meet specific minimal standards such as a kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and living room. Visitations such as these have been shown to have a very positive impact on all of those involved including reducing recidivism.[13] Beyond this, strict rules limiting the eligibility of prisoners for these visits aids in cutting down on illegal activities inside the prison walls by offering intimate time with one’s family as a reward for good behavior. The Stafford Creek Corrections Center in 2013 allowed 181 offenders to have over 250 visits with little to no issues or rule breaking.[14] Due to the limited physical space for these private visits, inmates could usually expect to have them once about every 60 days.

 

Video Visitation

Programs aimed at money-less bail and long term visitations are often only available to a small percentage of the incarcerated population and are not options at all to those who have been found guilty of certain violent crimes. Concerns for public safety or inmate flight justify the continued incarceration of these individuals but it often means these children in particular suffer from lack of parental contact. Video visitation programs allow for verbal and visual contact between parent and child, therefore allowing some of the benefits of contact to remain. These programs are very new and are not well established and often require the visitor to drive to a small number of police stations or the facility itself. While these programs promise to remove the issues of jails being far from offender’s family homes and even security concerns they also are often coupled with fees up to $15 per half-hour, which places a difficult financial burden on often already poor families.[15] 

 

Child Support Groups, Richmond Virginia 

A large part of the struggles children face through their parents incarceration is the social stigma and sense of isolation that comes with the changing circumstances. Children may be too young to fully understand the events transpiring in their life or may not have anyone to open up to about it. In Richmond the group Assisting Families of Inmates ran a program (it has since lost funding since 2010) in which the children of incarcerated parents had a support group set up through their school, complete with weekly meetings for 17 weeks.[16] These groups are organized by age and are focused on understanding the challenges ahead and becoming or remaining strong students. The meetings also provided a 

space for caregivers to discuss issues and find support where needed, even in a financial sense. 

 

 

Limitations of this Brief   


In this brief I have discussed the extent of the problem that is posed by children with incarcerated parents, outlined existing policies that impact the issue and offered possible new programs to help alleviate the burdens this issue causes. This is not an exhaustive brief however and many issues and programs are not discussed. Among these are the issues facing juveniles who are incarcerated and have children, as the rules and regulations surrounding imprisonment, visitation and alternative forms of punitive action are very different in these cases. There are many more examples of excellent model programs that the state of New Jersey could emulate, however I chose to put forward these as I felt they would have the most impact and the changes would be felt most quickly. Regulations and policies of federal prison systems are not discussed as well; however there are only two federal facilities in the state as opposed to 13 state facilities and so the majority of those incarcerated in the state are accounted for. 

 

 

Works Cited    


  1. Bruce Western and Becky Pettit, “Collateral Costs: Incarceration’s Effect on Economic Mobility,” The Pew Charitable Trusts, 2010, http://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/pcs_assets/2010/CollateralCosts1pdf.pdf
  2. “Children and Families of the Incarcerated Fact Sheet,” National Resource Center on Children & Families of the Incarcerated, 2014, http://nrccfi.camden.rutgers.edu/files/nrccfi-fact-sheet-2014.pdf
  3. “Parents in State Prisons,” The Sentencing Project, February 2013, http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/cc_Parents%20in%20State%20Prisons%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf
  4. Gary M. Lannigan, “Offender Characteristics Report,” New Jersey Department of Corrections, Office of Policy and Planning, March, 2014, http://www.state.nj.us/corrections/pdf/offender_statistics/2014/Entire%20Offender%20Characteristics%202014.pdf 
  5. “The Effects of Prison Visitation on Offender Recidivism,” Minnesota Department of Corrections, November 2011, http://www.doc.state.mn.us/pages/files/large-files/Publications/11-11MNPrisonVisitationStudy.pdf
  6. Bruce Western and Becky Pettit, “Collateral Costs: Incarceration’s Effect on Economic Mobility,” The Pew Charitable Trusts, 2010, http://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/pcs_assets/2010/CollateralCosts1pdf.pdf
  7. Chelsea Boudin, Trevor Stutz, and Aaron Littman, “Prison Visitation Policies: A Fifty State Survey,” Rutgers Camden, November 2012, http://nrccfi.camden.rutgers.edu/files/Chesa.pdf
  8. “In the Matter of the Guardianship of I.C. and E.D., Minors,” Superior Court of New Jersey Appellate Division, April 23, 2015, http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/opinions/a5871-12a5872-12.pdf
  9. “Removal of a Child,” New Jersey Department of Children and Families Policy Manual, May 10, 2010, http://www.state.nj.us/dcf/policy_manuals/CPP-II-C-2-700.pdf
  10. Scott Fallon, “New Jersey voters OK open space, bail reform ballot questions,” NorthJersey, November 4, 2014, http://www.northjersey.com/news/new-jersey-voters-ok-open-space-bail-reform-ballot-questions-1.1126384
  11. “Adult Drug Court and Community Family Court,” Oregon Judicial Department, 2014, http://courts.oregon.gov/Jackson/pages/TreatmentCourts.aspx
  12. “Family Court uses Tough Love to Help Addicted Parents Rebuild Lives, Families,” Oregon Department of Human Services, http://www.oregon.gov/dhs/children/beyondfc/pages/features/patricia-crain.aspx
  13. “The Effects of Prison Visitation on Offender Recidivism,” Minnesota Department of Corrections, November 2011, http://www.doc.state.mn.us/pages/files/large-files/Publications/11-11MNPrisonVisitationStudy.pdf
  14. Sam Luvisi, “Locked up in love: Extended family visitation at Stafford Creek,” The Daily World, February 16, 2014, http://thedailyworld.com/news/local/locked-love-extended-family-visitation-stafford-creek
  15. “Prisoners and Families Connect with Video Visitation, for a Price,” Prison Legal News, September 12, 2012, https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2012/sep/15/prisoners-and-families-connect-with-video-visitation-for-a-price/
  16. “Milk and Cookies Children’s Program,” Assisting Families of Inmates, http://www.afoi.org/services/children.html

 

 

Bibliography    


“Adult Drug Court and Community Family Court.” Oregon Judicial Department. 2014. http://courts.oregon.gov/Jackson/pages/TreatmentCourts.aspx

 

Boudin, Chelsea; Stutz, Trevor and Littman, Aaron. “Prison Visitation Policies: A Fifty State Survey.” Rutgers Camden. November 2012. http://nrccfi.camden.rutgers.edu/files/Chesa.pdf

 

“Children and Families of the Incarcerated Fact Sheet,” National Resource Center on Children & Families of the Incarcerated, 2014, http://nrccfi.camden.rutgers.edu/files/nrccfi-fact- sheet-2014.pdf

 

Fallon, Scott. “New Jersey voters OK open space, bail reform ballot questions.” NorthJersey. November 4, 2014. http://www.northjersey.com/news/new-jersey-voters-ok-open-space- bail-reform-ballot-questions-1.1126384

 

“Family Court uses Tough Love to Help Addicted Parents Rebuild Lives, Families.” Oregon Department of Human Services. http://www.oregon.gov/dhs/children/beyondfc/pages/features/patricia-crain.aspx

 

Glaze, Lauren E. and Maruschak, Laura M. “Parents in Prison and Their Minor Children.” Bureau of Justice Statistics. August 2008. http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/pptmc.pdf

 

“In the Matter of the Guardianship of I.C. and E.D., Minors.” Superior Court of New Jersey Appellate Division. April 23, 2015. http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/opinions/a5871- 12a5872-12.pdf

 

Lannigan, Gary M. “Offender Characteristics Report.” New Jersey Department of Corrections, Office of Policy and Planning. March, 2014. http://www.state.nj.us/corrections/pdf/offender_statistics/2014/Entire%20Offender%20C haracteristics%202014.pdf

 

Luvisi, Sam. “Locked up in love: Extended family visitation at Stafford Creek.” The Daily World. Last updated February 16, 2014. http://thedailyworld.com/news/local/locked- love-extended-family-visitation-stafford-creek

 

McKay, Tasseli, et al. “Parenting from Prison: Innovative Programs to Support Incarcerated and Reentering Fathers.” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. April 2010. http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/08/MFS-IP/Innovative/rb.shtml

 

“Milk and Cookies Children’s Program.” Assisting Families of Inmates. http://www.afoi.org/services/children.html

 

“Parents in State Prisons.” The Sentencing Project. February 2013. http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/cc_Parents%20in%20State%20Prison s%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf

 

“Prisoners and Families Connect with Video Visitation, for a Price.” Prison Legal News. September 12, 2012. https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2012/sep/15/prisoners-and- families-connect-with-video-visitation-for-a-price/

 

“Removal of a Child.” New Jersey Department of Children and Families Policy Manual, May 10, 2010. http://www.state.nj.us/dcf/policy_manuals/CPP-II-C-2-700.pdf

 

“The Effects of Prison Visitation on Offender Recidivism.” Minnesota Department of Corrections. November 2011. http://www.doc.state.mn.us/pages/files/large- files/Publications/11-11MNPrisonVisitationStudy.pdf

 

Western, Bruce and Pettit, Becky. “Collateral Costs: Incarceration’s Effect on Economic Mobility.” The Pew Charitable Trusts. 2010. http://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/pcs_assets/2010/CollateralCosts1 pdf.pdf

 

 

 

 

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