Paternal Incarceration and Early Sexual Onset among Adolescents

Agency & Identity Negotiations of "Good DNA" by Children with Incarcerated Parents Amidst Stigmatizing Mental Health Structures: A Culture-Centered Analysis

Children with incarcerated parents (CIP) face higher burdens of mental illness owing to an accumulation of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) marked by racialized and classed stigma. Utilizing instruments co-created by our CIP advisory board youth within a broader Youth Voice project, semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 30 CIP, forming the primary data set for analysis within the present manuscript, in addition to two advisory board focus groups and 21 questionnaires. Drawing upon the culture-centered approach (CCA), this study explores CIP's articulations of agency and positive identification, including narratives of strength, survival, and "good DNA" in making meaning of mental health experiences. Demonstrating a complex interplay of silence and voice, CIP agentically reframe mainstream narratives about problematic behavior as overt responses to inadequate structural support, challenge notions of the absent incarcerated parent, engage in the praxis of retailoring state mental health resources to align with their lived experiences and participate as active content creators and storytellers within community media spaces.

What are the factors of parental incarceration that may increase risk of poor emotional and mental health in children of prisoners?

PURPOSE

Globally millions of children have a parent who is imprisoned. Research suggests that this has an adverse impact on the child and imprisonment of a parent is considered to be an adverse childhood experience (ACE). Parental incarceration will not only affect the child but the entire household and may result in further ACEs such as household dysfunction and parental separation making this group of children particularly vulnerable. This scoping review aims to adopt an international perspective to comprehensively examine the extent range and nature of literature both published and grey relating to parental incarceration and the potential impact on children's emotional and mental health.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

In this scoping review, the five stages identified by Arksey and O'Malley (2005) were used including identifying the research question, identifying relevant studies, study selection, charting data, collating, summarising and reporting results. In addition, the included studies were appraised for quality using methodology-specific tools. A critical narrative synthesis was adopted to present findings and discussion.

FINDINGS

Nine studies met the inclusion criteria. Of the included studies, eight were retrieved from peer-reviewed journals and one from grey literature searching. Five categories with subcategories were identified affecting children's mental health: 1) Relationships: parent and incarcerated child relationship; facilitators and barriers to maintaining contact; 2) Family structure; maternal or paternal incarceration; living arrangements during parental incarceration; 3) Children's emotions: emotional recognition and regulation; resilience; 4) Prison stigma: social stigma; shame and secrecy; 5) Structural disadvantages: poverty; race/ethnicity.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

This scoping review has highlighted how the imprisonment of a parent negatively affects their children's emotional and mental health. Factors negatively impacting children's emotional and mental health are interrelated and complex. Further research is required, including differences between paternal and maternal incarceration; impact of gender and age of child; poverty as an ACE and prison exacerbating this; and effects of ethnicity and race. An important policy direction is in developing an effective way of capturing the parental status of a prisoner to ensure that the child and family receive needed support.

Stigma Arising from Youth Police Contact: The Protective Role of Mother-Youth Closeness

Objective

The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between mother-youth closeness and stigma stemming from police contact.

Background

Research increasingly indicates that stigma stemming from police-youth encounters links police contact to compromised outcomes among youth, though less is known about the correlates of stigma stemming from this criminal legal contact. Close mother-youth relationships, commonly understood to be protective for youth outcomes, may be one factor that buffers against stop-related stigma, especially the anticipation of stigma.

Method

We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a sample of youth born in urban areas around the turn of the 21st century, to examine the relationship between mother-youth closeness and stop-related stigma.

Results

We find that mother-youth closeness is negatively associated with stop-related anticipated stigma but not stop-related experienced stigma. We also find that the relationship between mother-youth closeness and stop-related anticipated stigma is concentrated among youth experiencing a non-intrusive stop.

Conclusion

Close mother-youth relationships may protect against stigma stemming from criminal legal contact.

Parental Incarceration, Development, and Well-Being: A Developmental Systematic Review

Despite an increasing number of studies examining the impact of parental incarceration on children's well-being, there are few comprehensive reviews that collect this information, and even fewer from a developmental perspective. This study aims to clarify the effects of parental incarceration on children's well-being and development, as well as the moderating and mediating factors from a developmental perspective. A systematic review was conducted according to PRISMA guidelines, selecting 61 studies of children from early childhood to adolescence. The results show differences in the current evidence regarding the effects of parental incarceration on children depending on the developmental stage, with the most evidence in the 7-11-year-old stage. Being male appears as a risk moderator factor while the mental health of the caregiver and their relationship with the child appears as a mediating variable, especially from 7 to 18 years old. These results reveal the impact of parental incarceration based on children's age, providing a basis for developing protective and intervention measures.

Adolescents' Partner Search in the Digital Age: Correlates and Characteristics of Relationships Initiated Online

Digital technology and social media platforms have transformed the ways adolescents communicate and cultivate romantic relationships, but few studies consider whether relationships initiated online are less salutary than those formed in person. A sample of 531 adolescents (Mean age = 16.7 years, SD = 0.358; 55% female) was recruited from an ongoing birth cohort study and administered bi-weekly diaries over a year to evaluate the circumstances associated with adolescents' romantic relationship formation and relationship quality. Two-thirds of respondents initiated one or more romantic relationships during the study, of which 15% were initiated online. Girls who did not fit in well at school and who had difficulty making friends were more likely to initiate romantic relationships online than their more sociable peers who fit in well at school; for boys, however, access to mobile devices increased the odds that romantic relationships were initiated online. The diaries captured considerable flux in the evolution of romantic relationships, but there was limited evidence that relationships initiated online involved greater risks, with the notable exception of greater age asymmetry.

Assessing the relationship between parental imprisonment in childhood and risk of sexually transmitted infections: a cohort study of US adults in early adulthood

OBJECTIVES

One in six young adults in the USA experiences parental imprisonment in childhood. Prior studies have associated parental imprisonment with risk of sexually transmitted infection (STI); however, potential data and methodological issues may have limited the reliability and accuracy of prior findings. Examining cumulative and longitudinal risk, we address several methodological limitations of prior studies and also examine comparative risk by respondent sex and ethnicity. We assess these associations using a range of control variables.

DESIGN

A national cohort study from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health using (1) a cross-sectional sample of adults at ages 24-32 years and (2) a longitudinal sample between ages 18 and 32 years. Both analyses estimate ORs for STI associated with parental imprisonment and examine variation by parent/child gender and respondent ethnicity.

SETTING

In-home interviews in the USA at wave 1 (1994-1995), wave 3 (2001-2003) and wave 4 (2007-2009).

PARTICIPANTS

15 684 respondents completing interviews at wave 1 (ages 12-18 years) and wave 4 (ages 26-32 years), including 8556 women, 3437 black and 2397 respondents reporting parental imprisonment.

RESULTS

Father-only imprisonment is associated with 1.22 higher odds (95% CI: 1.09 to 1.37) of lifetime STI and 1.19 higher odds (95% CI: 1.01 to 1.41) of STI in the past 12 months between ages 18 and 32 years, adjusting for familial, neighbourhood, individual and sexual risk factors. Maternal imprisonment is not associated with higher risk of lifetime STI after adjusting for confounders (95% CI: 0.90 to 1.61). Examining predicted probabilities of STI, our findings show additive risks for women, black people and parental imprisonment.

CONCLUSION

Adjusting for confounders, only paternal imprisonment is associated with slightly elevated risk of annual and lifetime risk of STI. Additive effects show that parental imprisonment modestly increases ethnic and female risk for STI.