Tag Archive for substance abuse

More Than 500 Well-structured and –run Juvenile Drug Courts are Reducing Recidivism and Alleviating a Range of Individual, Family and Community Problems

Image by Images_of_Money, used under it's Creative Commons license

Image by Images_of_Money, used under it’s Creative Commons license

Because four of five juvenile crimes involve drugs, the first juvenile drug court program began operations in Key West, Fla., in October 1993. By June 2009 there were approximately 500 juvenile drug courts operating in the United States, and the number of them has continued to grow.

A National Institutes of Justice Report on Juvenile Drug
Courts found that in studies of 70 courts, recidivism went down for participants.

A major report from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention observed:

Professional personnel involved with these programs agree that juvenile drug courts exercise more intensive supervision over juvenile offenders than do traditional juvenile courts. It is believed that the rigorous monitoring of participants and the treatment and rehabilitation requirements of juvenile drug court programs promote a greater likelihood of success in reducing drug use and delinquent activity than can be achieved through most existing juvenile court processes.

Frequently established within juvenile courts, juvenile drug courts are intensive treatment programs that provide specialized services for drug-involved youth and their families. Service areas include substance abuse treatment, mental health, primary care, family assistance and education.

The DOJ report cites eight key elements of an effective juvenile drug court program:

  1. Its team should include, at a minimum, a judge, prosecutor, defense attorney, treatment provider, evaluator and school representative, working collaboratively to meet the needs of the juvenile and his or her family.
  2. Intervention by the court should be as soon as possible following the juvenile’s initial contact with the justice system and there should be continuous judicial supervision through frequent (often weekly) status hearings with the juvenile and his or her family.
  3. There should be development of a court-supervised program of substance-abuse treatment and other core services to address the multifaceted issues that the juvenile and his or her family face (such as the juvenile’s substance use, family and educational needs and behavioral problems as they affect his or her ability to lead a drug-free life).
  4. There needs to be effective coordination of treatment and other services.
  5. Ongoing monitoring of the youngster’s progress in the program through frequent random urinalysis, continuous supervision and proactive case management is important.
  6. Essential is immediate judicial response to the progress of each participating juvenile or his/her noncompliance with the court’s program conditions.
  7. The judge should be concerned about juveniles and their families, sensitive to cultural and other factors unique to each participant and interested and trained in adolescent development and behavior, substance abuse and pharmacology.
  8. The program philosophy should focus on capitalizing on the strengths of each juvenile and his or her family.

Juvenile drug court services should also promote competency development (e.g., writing, computer literacy, and artistic skills) and the ongoing interaction between treatment and court processes.

Among the special attributes of juvenile drug court treatment services are:

  1. Early and extensive assessment of the juvenile and his or her family situation.
  2. Provision of developmentally based, gender-specific and culturally appropriate treatment and other core services.
  3. Significant focus on family therapy and other services to assist and improve the capacity of the family and juvenile to work together to achieve program goals.
  4. Sustained attention to each juvenile participant’s school performance, peer relationships, development of competencies and self-esteem.
  5. Ongoing case management of services to ensure that the program meets each participant’s current needs.

The initial period of juvenile drug court operations brought to light a number of other special issues that were not readily apparent at the start. The nature of juvenile drug court participants’ substance use and other problems is complex, requiring the provision of an array of family services, specialized treatment, and other core adolescent services. Programs frequently report not only considerable substance use by youth but significant percentages of participants with mental health problems (particularly depression, fetal alcohol syndrome or effects, and learning disabilities) and physical difficulties. In many instances, the nature and extent of these problems do not become apparent until a juvenile has been involved in the program for some time. Ongoing and updated assessments are therefore essential.

The initial experience of juvenile drug courts strongly suggests that services need to be family-focused and complemented by a sound program of other core adolescent services. In addition, individualized treatment services usually need to be developed for participants. Programs also must enable participants to develop the capacity and the self-confidence to fill time previously devoted to drugs and crime with productive activity, thereby increasing the likelihood that they will lead drug- and crime-free lives.

The DOJ report examined seven “exemplary” programs serving 1203 teens, aged 12-18, in FL, CA, NM, MO and MT communities. They each had retention rates of 56% to 77%.

In addition, a number of juvenile drug courts have been adopting the Multisystemic Therapy (MST) approach, which is designed to provide family-based treatment to reduce or eliminate the need for out-of-home placement. MST’s “family preservation” model of service delivery is based on the evidence-supported belief that the most effective strategy for helping substance-involved juvenile offenders is through improving intra-familial relations and assisting the family in providing the support structure that can function during and after the period of the court’s intervention.

The MST approach was developed in response to the lack of scientifically proven, cost-effective strategies designed to treat adolescent substance abuse. Preliminary evaluation of MST programs has indicated that, compared with traditional service, MST has been significantly more effective in reducing long-term rates of criminal behavior and also is considerably less expensive. Additional evaluations now in progress appear to corroborate these results.

“Transformational Campus” Programs Move Homeless from Streets to Multi-service Facilities

Homeless Guy on 6th St. in Austin, TX

Homeless Guy on 6th St. in Austin, TX (Photo credit: Bukowsky18)

In June 2010, San Antonio’s $125 million “Haven for Hope” program opened the largest and most comprehensive “transformational campus” in the U.S. It now has 15 buildings on 37 acres and nearly a half million square feet under roof. More than 80 faith-based, non-profit and government service partners work together to holistically and proactively help the nearly 2,100 residents daily. Robert Marbut was the founding President and CEO.

Haven for Hope provides hundreds of services to homeless people, including medical, dental, vision, substance abuse , mental health and podiatry clinics; classrooms for job and life skills training; and housing, legal, childcare, veterans , case-management and pet-shelter services. It also provides food, exercise, clothing, banking and transportation services. It has safe outdoor mat-sleeping zones for those not yet ready for the program. Of those who have utilized the outdoor sleeping courtyard, 797 have moved to the Transformational Campus and 126 have gone into permanent housing.

Seven hundred people live on campus and work toward jobs, homes and independence. Since the program opened three years ago, there have been 383 job placements, including 100% employment for those in the dental hygienist training program and those completing the first culinary training class. The In-House Recovery Program, which provides housing and support for those with drug and alcohol addictions, has had a 60% success rate, with a total of 240 graduates.

More than 500 individuals have completed various transformation programs and are now living independently. So successful is Haven of Hope that leaders from nearly 200 cities from 44 states have visited the campus, in hopes of implementing similar programs in their communities.

According to its brochure:

The campus is near downtown, close to existing social service facilities. It is funded through a combination of public funds (city, county and federal) as well as private donations. It represents tremendous cost savings, since it is much less expensive to treat the homeless in a center of this kind than it is through publicly funded emergency rooms or other care facilities. Haven of Hope is managed by an independent board, free of political red tape.

“Effective treatment also keeps the homeless out of the legal system and jail, and additional research shows that up to 80% of people who become homeless within a given year can exit homelessness quickly–if they get the assistance they need.

A similar, though somewhat controversial transformational center, is the 500-bed St. Petersburg Safe Harbor program. Robert Marbut, who has studied homelessness in hundreds of cities, was its paid consultant, and Sarasota is contemplating hiring him for a similar approach there.

St. Petersburg’s huge homeless problem became national news when a video of its police officers with box cutters slashing up a makeshift tent city near downtown went viral.

To promote his centers, Marbut has backed panhandling bans, spoken of limiting the frequent public feedings downtown by churches and charities that had become a magnet for the homeless, and supports sending those caught sleeping on sidewalks, having open alcohol containers or relieving themselves in public to Safe Harbor—instead of jail.

Most controversial is the revelation that St. Petersburg—which has seen the homeless population downtown drop from hundreds to only a few dozen—has been giving homeless people bus tickets to other cities. So, while its homeless count has dropped, Sarasota’s has increased.

According to Sarah Snyder, executive director of the Pinellas County Coalition for the Homeless, a group that develops policy and determines how federal grant money is distributed countywide:

I think Safe Harbor is part of the answer, but I don’t think it’s the whole answer. We can’t force people to become better. We can only show them how much better their lives could be if they made some changes.

 

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Mental Health and Substance Abuse Counseling are Woefully Inadequate for Most Youths in Custody

Abused

Abused (Photo credit: Andrea Marutti)

The first national survey of kids aged 10-20 in state and local juvenile custody, the Survey of Youth in Residential Placement (SYRP), released in 2010, found that most of them had experienced trauma and suffered from one or more mental health or substance abuse problems, yet a majority of them (particularly those with the severest needs) received no counseling.

The report found that:

Thirty percent of confined young people had experienced sexual, physical, or emotional abuse, 67 percent had seen someone killed or severely injured, and 70 percent reported that something bad or terrible had happened to them. Only 15 percent reported no trauma incidents in their past.

A large share of juveniles in custody reported behaviors that make it difficult to succeed in a conventional classroom, such as having a hard time paying attention in school (45 percent), having a hard time staying organized (40 percent), and being unable to stay in their seat (32 percent). Surprisingly, all three behaviors were reported at a higher rate by girls than by boys.

Anger problems were also rampant, with 68 percent reporting being easily upset, and 61 percent saying they lost their temper easily. Here, too, girls were more likely than boys to report problems.

Signs of more serious mental illness were also widespread. One in six confined youth suffered hallucinations, one fourth had elevated symptoms for depression, and substantial percentages reported: having suicidal thoughts (28 percent), feeling that life was not worth living (25 percent), or wishing they were dead (19 percent). Girls were far more likely than boys to report each of these symptoms. And, alarmingly, 44 percent of confined girls reported that they had attempted suicide, compared with 19 percent of confined boys.

Sixty-eight percent of confined children reported an alcohol or drug problem in the months preceding custody: 49 percent reported drinking many times per week or daily, and 64 percent reported taking drugs this frequently.

Despite these grave and widespread needs, only 53 percent of the 7,073 youngsters sampled in the SYRP report received any mental health counseling in their facilities, and only 51 percent got any substance abuse counseling. Youth with elevated symptoms for depression, anxiety, anger and hallucinations were less likely than kids with fewer symptoms to receive mental health counseling.

Moreover, 38 percent feared being physically abused in their facilities, 35 percent said staff used force against them when it wasn’t necessary, nearly half of them reported that staff in their facilities conducted strip searches, and one-fourth of the youth reported being held in solitary confinement.

 
A 2010 Justice Policy Institute research review on trauma-informed care for court-involved youth found that:

Confinement has been shown to exacerbate the symptoms of mental disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder, and the risk of abuse by staff or other youth can be traumatizing.

In particular, characteristics of correctional facilities such as seclusion, staff insensitivity or loss of privacy can exacerbate negative feelings created by previous victimization, especially among PTSD sufferers and girls. Youth in correctional facilities are frequently exposed to verbal and physical aggression, which can intensify fear or traumatic symptoms.

The survey also found that more than one-fourth of confined youth nationwide were held in facilities that did not routinely screen them for suicide risk, and more than half were in places that did not screen or assess all residents for mental health needs. In addition, suicide and mental health assessments were often completed by unqualified staff, and nearly 9 of every 10 confined youth nationwide resided in facilities that relied on unlicensed staff to deliver some or all counseling services.

Several organizations are today striving to rectify these problems.

Related articles

Building Blocks for Youth 

Findings from the First Ever National Survey of Juveniles in Custody 

Traumatic Pasts, Urgent Counseling Needs, Inadequate Services: Findings from the First Ever National Survey of Juveniles in Custody

 

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Correctional System: Responding to Juveniles with Substance Abuse and Mental Health Needs

In their own words:

In order to provide effective treatment and programming to youth with behavioral health needs, juvenile justice authorities and their partners must be equipped to quickly identify individuals who may have these needs, make referrals for full assessments and appropriate services, and provide services both while the youths are in custody and during the reentry process. Presenters focus on the use of assessment tools and other treatment needs, and matching youths to appropriate and effective programs and supports.

Speakers:

  • Randy Muck, Senior Clinical Consultant, Advocates for Youth and Family Behavioral Health Treatment, LLC
  • Valerie Williams, Research Instructor and Co-Director, National Youth Screening and Assessment Project, Center for Mental Health Services Research, Department of Psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School
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A Conversation with Jeanne McAlister

Today our resident blogger had the opportunity to talk with Jeanne McAlister, Chief Executive Officer and founder of McAlister Institute. The conversation was enlightening to say the least!

Jeanne McAlister, the Chief Executive Officer and founder of McAlister Institute, has been a pioneer in the field of recovery. She has constantly advocated for responsive and needed treatment services and developed programs which could easily be replicated by others. Recognizing that drug abuse negatively affects all aspects of the individual, family, and community life, the goal of McAlister Institute programs is to assist individuals in regaining their lives by supporting the recovery process. As a result, tens of thousands of youth and adults have successfully regained their lives through her vision and with the help of McAlister Institute’s wide variety of programs.

The Link Between Prostitution and Homelessness

Homeless girlAmong the significant number of homeless teens on the street there are many who have been reduced by circumstances to prostitution. It’s a grim and ugly reality.

One of the factors that makes this issue less visible, in addition to the blind spot many develop towards the homeless in general, is the fact that it does not always adhere to the expectations. The classic stereotype of “hooker and pimp” is only one of many permutations possible on the streets. Prostitution does not always involve an exchange of favors for currency.

Laura Rillos, KVAL News, reports:

[Chris] Mirabal [program manager of Looking Glass New Roads, a day shelter dedicated to homeless youth] said the most common is called ‘survival sex.’  Typically, a person will offer a homeless youth a place to stay and expect sexual activity in return.

Sometimes, said Mirabal, the teen is not aware of the arrangement until after they’ve stayed with a person for a few days or weeks.

This form of predatory behavior is not confined to targeting the female gender. Homeless males find themselves being pushed into these compromising situations as well:

‘They wanted to have, like me have sex with her, while I’m staying on their couch, as part of rent,’ said a young homeless man who wanted to be identified as Brain. ‘I was like, I can’t do that. I’m sorry.’

Brain is 21 years old. He acknowledges his age and gender made it easier for him to say no and leave that situation.

Lack of resources can drive people to desperate measures. Add in the possibility of mental health or substance abuse issues, and the situation gets rapidly worse. When you don’t know where your next meal is coming from it become easier to rationalize things like this.

The escalating harshness of life on the streets over the recent years is also a factor. Young homeless girls in particular are at risk of rape, assault, and descent into prostitution. Without the normal support infrastructure provided by family and friends their vulnerability escalates.

Wendy McElroy, editor of ifeminists and someone who has herself been homeless, has commented on this aspect of the situation back in 2001:

The situation confronting homeless teens is worse today than when I ran away. It was the dead of winter when I left, and for the first nights I slept on the pew of a church whose doors were always open. Today, those doors would probably be locked. I was at one point ‘discovered,’ which was my greatest fear, but the person simply put a blanket over me and left without waking me up. Today, society is numbed to homelessness; we are overwhelmed with compassion fatigue and acts of gratuitous kindness seem to be fewer. We avert our eyes from the hand-painted signs and ignore the rattling cups.

McElroy’s position in the column is a controversial one. She advocates loosening of the child-labor restrictions so that the underage homeless can work and develop their own resources. Her reasoning is that most of the homeless in that age range are fleeing an abusive environment at home, and most programs are geared to return them to that home. Obviously, it is an idea that has gained little traction in the near decade since.

Source: “‘Survival sex’ lures homeless teens into prostitution,” KVAL.com, 02/09/10
Source: “Homelessness and Prostitution,” ifeminists, 05/15/01
Image by Franco Folini, used under its Creative Commons license.

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San Diego’s School Board: A Long and Winding Road to Change

Old schoolSo many of our societal ills can be traced back to failures in the American educational system. Thus it is vitally important that we take an interest in that system and how it’s functioning.

In San Diego, one of the obvious problems is the continuing changes in the school superintendent’s office. The electoral process for the school board in San Diego is both archaic and unusual, and, in addition, it is unlike any other electoral process in the city.

Emily Alpert, a blogger for Voices of San Diego, recently presented an in-depth analysis of that odd system as well as the critiques it has drawn from both sides of the political aisle. Here is a small sample:

Here is how the unusual system works: Candidates like Rosen and his opponents have to survive two elections. In the June primary, they battle in one of five smaller subdistricts. The top two candidates then advance to the November election, where the entire school district votes.

The system might seem strange: No other K-12 school district in San Diego County is elected this way. It is a hybrid of district elections — in which voters in a small slice of a city or school district elect their own representative — and at-large elections in which the whole area votes.

But it was actually the same way that San Diego used to elect its City Council. Even though the city has no power over the school district, schools’ election rules have been laid out in the city charter since 1939.

Voters scrapped that system for City Council 22 years ago, replacing it with district-only elections to ensure that minorities had a better shot at being heard.

But the system stayed the same for the school board — and attracts the same criticisms.

Alpert then goes into a detailed examination of views on all sides of the equation. Here are a few that  she shares in her article:

San Diegans 4 Great Schools, a group that includes philanthropists, business leaders and parents, argues that the existing school board system is outdated and blames it for the revolving door of superintendents that San Diego Unified has suffered in recent years.

Organizer Scott Himelstein says a small school board with five members can swing too easily in a single election, changing the whole direction of the school district in a snap. His group has quietly discussed the idea of adding four new, appointed members to the board.

This would bring it more in line with the rest of the state:

Most school boards in California have five members, but almost all of the large school districts elsewhere in the country have larger boards with seven or nine trustees.

Anyone interested in social issues should take a look at Alpert’s article (link below under “Sources”). Most social ills seem to be rooted in childhood, and education is a vastly important part of that. Issues at that level all too often blossom later in life into homlessness, criminal activity, and substance abuse. As a result, examination of the system and exploration of the methods that can improve it are vital.

Source: “The Unusual Road to the San Diego School Board,” Voice of San Diego, 09/06/10
Image by Adam Pieniazek, used under its Creative Commons license.

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How To Become Homeless

HomelessAs we watch the economy spiral seemingly out of control, the specter of homelessness looms disturbingly close for people of all socioeconomic strata. Add in the chaos in the American housing market, and the picture becomes starkly unpleasant.

It’s a simple fact that we are seeing the number of the homeless grow, and it is disturbingly easy to end up on the streets. Right now, in Colorado, thousands face this possibility as the wildfires ravage the state. I know that feeling well from personal experience. You see, I am a native of New Orleans.

Just over five years ago, hurricane Katrina hit the city, and then the next morning the levees failed, flooding New Orleans. My wife and I had just emptied our savings account to pay for our wedding and honeymoon, and the checking account was low because it was a few days before payday. We ended up evacuating across the country with a total of about $200 and no vehicle.

With our friends, family and support network also scattered across the U.S., things became scary in very short order. Thanks to a few friends in other states we did not lack for a roof, but, as the weeks dragged on, the situation became more and more uneasy. I had a broken hand at the time, and so most earning opportunities were not viable. I was able to pick up a few bucks here and there, but nothing resembling enough income for a fresh start.

It was weeks before we had any inkling of whether we would be able to return to the city, much less whether anything we owned had survived. My then fiancee and I had a backpack of clothes each, a laptop, and our five cats. Things looked bleak.

“What about those legendary FEMA checks for $2,000 that everyone got?” you might ask. Not everyone got assistance, I know I sure didn’t. The Red Cross in New York helped us out with some clothes and a few hundred dollars. Let me tell you, you’ve never seen just how little $300 really is until it is all you have.

I will never forget having to swallow my pride and extend my hand for aid. We made it through thanks to the generosity of friends and strangers in Indiana and New York, but the awareness of the precipice was never absent from my thoughts. A few days before, everything was great: the wedding expenses were paid, I had a great new job, and we had just moved into a new apartment. Then, suddenly, it was all gone, taking all of my social resources with it.

We were very lucky. We made it back to NOLA six weeks after the disaster had struck — to find that most of our stuff had survived. It could easily have gone the other way, leaving us homeless. For many, it did.  I will never forget the fear in my heart during those times.

Just about anyone is susceptible to the whims of Mother Nature, and she can take the roof from over your head in a heartbeat. Whether it is the levee failures in NOLA, wildfires in Colorado, or some other species of disaster — it can happen to you.

Of course, due to my experience, this is what I think of first, but there are many other causes of homelessness. The Walk For The Homeless website enumerates a number of factors, including job loss:

As someone who has been homeless, I can tell you that loss of employment is one reason people, even whole families, become homeless. This is more likely to occur when there is only one wage earner in the family, if employment is seasonal such as construction or lawn maintenance, or if you both work and each earns only minimum wage. While there is usually a combination of reasons why people become homeless a particular one often stands out: illness.  Injury, sickness, and even mental illness can lead to being fired, laid off or replaced. Most of the time if you’re not able to do the work, you are out of a job. When you live from paycheck to paycheck, sometimes all it takes is to miss one or two paychecks and you can end up homeless. This is especially true if you have no friends or family to turn to for help.

Drawing on this information, Drea Knufken at Business Pundit boils things down into the Five Ways to Become Homeless, a list of things and situations that can leave you living on the streets. She also makes a very apt cultural observation:

Homelessness in the United States has always struck me as particularly painful. Penury is not well tolerated in the Land of Opportunity. People think money is easy to come by here, giving extreme poverty an especially powerful stigma.

In some countries, the homeless are seen as being cursed. In America, we do the cursing ourselves, labeling homeless people as lazy — one of Calvinistic capitalism’s direst sins.

The truth is that most homeless people know how to work hard.

This cultural perception is often borne out by observing the way that the majority of people treat the homeless when they encounter them on the streets. Not always, thankfully, but quite often.

Illness, job loss, foreclosure, or natural disaster — all can be harbingers of an upcoming life on the streets. It is worth remembering that these faces could be your own, and it would not take as much as you might think to end up there.

Source: “Why Do People Become Homeless?,” Walk For The Homeless
Source: “5 Ways to Become Homeless,” Business Pundit, 08/15/08
Image by Franco Folini, used under its Creative Commons license.

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eHow Covers Alternatives to Imprisonment for Women

Maggots in my Sweet Potatoes: Women Doing TimeThe issue of imprisoned women is the elephant in the room. A quick Google search reveals that it is a well-known problem, and one that is getting steadily worse. There’s even an article about alternatives to incarceration for women on the popular “how-to” website eHow.

The site includes simple directions on how to do a wide variety of things. From making a better paper airplane to instructions for electronics projects, there is a mass of instructional material there that has become a standard destination for web surfers. It is therefore interesting to see eHow’s approach to this delicate but important subject.

Kristine Paglio, an eHow contributing writer, sets the stage for her article on the subject with some quick background notes:

Women currently constitute the fastest-growing subset of offenders being incarcerated. In the United States, women make up 7 percent of the total prison population. Incarcerated women are usually convicted of non-violent or drug-related offenses, or as accessories to a crime. Due to the lack of their participation in violent crime, many women can be considered for alternatives to incarceration, as they do not pose a threat to society. Offering them alternatives to incarceration allows women to care for their children and acquire education and job skills, as well as participate in needed counseling or therapy.

Once more, we see the common thread that is turning up more and more frequently, an emphasis on reintegration with society rather than on meting out punishment. Several of our recent posts have touched on that very theme. The similarities continue when one looks at the specific approaches that address this issue. Paglio lists a number of them in her article:

These alternative programs include, but are not limited to: electronic monitoring (i.e., home confinement); parenting classes; educational programming (including G.E.D. acquisition); employability programs (which impart skills like cooking and data entry); abuse and victimization therapy (which teach offenders to break the cycle of relationship violence); supervised living (e.g., halfway houses); and day supervision (in which the offender must submit to drug testing, perform community service and observe a mandated curfew).

Trauma and substance-abuse issues must also be considered, since almost 60-70%  of incarcerated women have been  abused or victimized, have a substance abuse problem, and have children. Skill- and confidence-building programs such as those suggested above provide additional tools for the inmate to use in her reentry into larger society.

What are your thoughts on these alternative programs? Do you think that a more socially utilitarian approach, where reintegration into the greater whole is the main objective, is the way to proceed? Let us know!

Source: “Alternatives to Incarceration for Women,” eHow, undated
Image copyright Susan Madden Lankford, from the book “Maggots in my Sweet Potatoes: Women Doing Time.” Used with permission.

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Poehlmann Studies Effect of Incarcerated Parents on Children

Maggots in my Sweet Potatoes: Women Doing Time

Having a parent in prison is a hard to bear for a child, I think we all can agree on that. Is there a way to quantify the effect this can have on a child’s social development though? It’s an important question because of the sheer number of children it affects.

Julie Poehlmann, a professor at the School of Human Ecology and investigator at the Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, estimates that 1.7 million (about 2.3%) children across America have a parent in prison. A truly staggering number.

David Tennenbaum, a freelance writer, recently published a piece on the University of Wisconsin website, in which he interviewed Poehlmann on the subject:

Although a definitive cause-and-effect relationship has not been established, children of incarcerated parents tend to have more arrests, and more problems with behavior, relationships, school, and substance abuse. ‘It’s all the things you would expect,’ says Poehlmann.

Problems are particularly acute when the mother is in jail or prison. ‘It’s more likely that the child will move out of house, and be placed with grandparents,’ she says. ‘They are more likely to change schools and have a higher risk of substance abuse, and the father is also likely to be incarcerated.’

Bleak, but not unexpected. A child with an incarcerated parent is at a pronounced disadvantage compared to his or her peers in many ways. There is possibility of mitigating these circumstances though:

Poehlmann, who has studied mothers, substitute caregivers and children in Milwaukee, Racine, Green Bay, Beloit and other parts of Wisconsin, finds that a strong, close attachment with the alternative caregiver can mitigate the harm of incarceration.

Since it is during childhood that we shape the adults of tomorrow, this is a subject of no small gravity. Do you have experience as a parent, child, or caregiver in this sort of situation? If so, we would love to add your perspective to the conversation, please leave us a comment and let us know your thoughts.

Source: “Research examines the price of prison for children,” University of Wisconsin-Madison News, 08/09/10
Image copyright Susan Madden Lankford, from the book “Maggots in my Sweet Potatoes: Women Doing Time.” Used with permission.

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