Chapter 10 Parent and Child - About 1.7 million children in the United States

Central Michigan University Ch 10 Parent and Child Discussion

Instructions

As seen in the lecture and read in Chapter 10 this week, about 1.7 million children in the United States have an incarcerated parent, and about 10 million have experienced a parent incarcerated at some point in their lives. This tends to impact female inmates slightly more than male inmates – about 80% of female inmates have dependent children. The question for this week will focus on the impact of that separation.

Do you think having a parent incarcerated makes it more likely for a child to end up in the CJS at some point? Is parent incarceration a causal factor in offending behavior of children? Think back to the discussion of theory and the factors that cause crime.

We also discussed a few programs that can help with the separation of parent and child while the parent is incarcerated. Do you think these programs are effective? What types of programs can you find that seem to be effective if you think they are worth the investment? If you do not think these programs can be effective, what types of programs do you think would work better?

Your reaction essay this week then is two-fold:

• Does incarceration of a parent cause the dependent child to be an offender?
• Do programs that seek to keep the bond between incarcerated parent and child work? If so, which ones? If not, how could this be improved?