You would think with all the talk of what a bad childhood does to people, you would think our society would be more cognizant of protecting our children from experiencing trauma in the first place, and keeping them safe instead of throwing them to the wolves.
We throw them to the wolves when their parent becomes involved with the law. The law is harsh and does not give much thought to what jail time will do to the entire family, especially the children. Let us not forget! The children and families are impacted in the same way as if they were incarcerated. With that in mind, in this article, we talk about what happens to a child when their parent is arrested.
Women are trapped in the troubles of legal problems and incarceration at an amazing rate. Caught on the legal hamster wheel, they find it nearly impossible get off. Once targeted as a criminal, future contact with the law puts them in the forefront.
Compliance is especially difficult among women because they are the mothers. Single moms already struggling to make ends meet. One in five children of incarcerated mothers are under 5 years old, and 1.5 million adults under correctional control are parents to 8.3 million children (Facts, 2019).
The annual income for a woman in the system is $11,700. A black woman’s average income is $9,000. One-half of all Black and Hispanic single moms have a net worth of zero or less (-0) (Facts, 2019).
Children with a parent behind bars are typically younger than 10 years old, are low-income, and raised by a single mother of color with little educational achievement.
The average age for inmates is between 25 and 44; the age of parents. The number of children with incarcerated parents has risen five-hundred percent since 1980! More than five million children have a parent who was incarcerated at some point in their lives (Kids, 2018).
how children are affected when a parent is incarcerated
The effects on a child with an incarcerated parent is as devastating as any other trauma. Incarcerating a parent carries the same magnitude of anguish for a child as does abuse, domestic violence and divorce. The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACES) is the landmark study that changed the way we understand childhood trauma. The researchers came up with nine questions that can determine the impact and lasting effects of trauma on a person’s life.
One of the questions is this:
“Have you had a member of your family incarcerated in jail or prison?”
A child exposed to trauma experiences delays in much of their development, which adversely affects the way the child relates to peers and adults. Trauma impacts their success in school, and relationships and employment in adulthood. The unrelenting mental anguish and pain can be too much to endure.
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In the context of suicide, children exposed to trauma have a higher risk of suicide than those who aren’t.
Understand, we are talking about trauma: A remarkable event that is so strongly packed with heightened negative emotions that thoughts of the event will continually return throughout the person’s life.
Today’s children are exposed to enough upset as it is. But when we add an incarcerated parent to the mix, they experience extreme stress due to losing that parent. And if the mother is single, then where does the child stay while she does the time?
To be successful in life, children must be educated and feel connected to their schools; feel positive connections with their parents, teachers, and other caring adults; and interact with prosocial and non-violent peers.
This is rather difficult for children whose parents are poor, stressed, live in inadequate housing, and are having trouble with the law.
Imagine the stress for a child who has no roots and a disconnected family. The brain is wired for normal events; love, shelter, food, and protection. When these things do not happen, or are disrupted, neurological pathways are disrupted. The result is feelings of lowered self-worth and helplessness, loss of confidence, and language and development delays – with behaviors surfacing as defiance, a bad attitude, and trouble dealing with school and society.
Children who witness an arrest of a household member are at greater risk of having posttraumatic stress symptoms compared to children who have not witnessed an arrest.
Lowered teacher expectations because of the child’s situation.
The report by the Department of Justice, Parents in Prison and Their Minor Children, shows that one-quarter of children of incarcerated parents are expelled or suspended, as compared to four-percent of children of non-incarcerated parents.
This speaks loudly of trouble. The child carries a stigma because his parent is a criminal, even though he had nothing to do with the parent’s criminality. The stigma attaches to him like glue.
Add in the psychological effects of an incarceration and likely witnessing the parent’s arrest, no wonder children quit school and follow their parent’s path. Lack of self-esteem, confidence blown to smithereens, thoughts of blame and shame.
When parents are arrested in front of their children, this is what the child sees:
67% were handcuffed
27% had weapons drawn
3% reported a physical struggle
2% had pepper spray
What we know about trauma, we can safely say arresting a parent is quite traumatizing for a child. Whether or not the child sees the arrest, the sudden absence of the parent is very upsetting.
When a parent goes to jail, the child’s support system falls apart. The bond with that parent becomes strained, if not broken entirely. The child harbors doubt, anger, resentment, and worst of all, feelings of abandonment and embarrassment over the parent’s legal troubles. The parent is gone from the home for an indeterminate length of time, life spirals downhill, and the child feels lost and alone.
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Is incarceration of a parent a direct result of a child taking her life? The stigma that goes along with an incarcerated parent, and being ostracized from her peers, places a great strain on her feeling of belongingness. Angry because the parent is gone, but guilty because they are angry.
Children have a tendency to take on the adult responsibility when things go wrong: Perhaps if she wasn’t so demanding for new things, her father wouldn’t have stolen. Or if she wasn’t so mean, her mother might not be on drugs.
A child from a dysfunctional or abusive family does not realize adult problems are adult problems, and not his. In his kind and caring way, he tries to fix the family’s problems. Abuse in the home is embarrassing, but the family acts as if all is well in the public eye. Privately, though, not much is going well. The child protects the family structure at all costs, because they know if something bad happens to their parents, their life will turn worse than it already is.
The stress on the child is often too much to bear. The suicide may occur years later, when no one is thinking about the child’s past. But as we study the effects on children by incarcerating their parents, and follow them years down the line, we see severe mental health issues, many of them leading to suicide.
If we want to prevent suicide, if we want to prevent childhood abuse, if we want to prevent mass incarceration, then we need to look at what we are doing to our children. The police justify their means, but are their means really justified?
What do you think? How do you feel about arresting parents in front of their children? How do you feel about arresting parents? Or perhaps you have views on this question: “Is there a correlation between incarceration and suicide?”
Glaze, L.E., Maruschak, L.M. (2008). Parents in Prison and their Minor Children. Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report. U.S. Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Revised 3/30/10. https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/pptmc.pdf
