Parental Incarceration Histories and Children's Problem Behaviors Using Individual Growth Curves

• In Event: The Impact of Parental Incarceration on Children's Offending and Incarceration

Abstract

Nearly three million children in the U.S. have a parent incarcerated in federal and state prisons; countless others have experienced parental incarceration at some point in their childhood. Available estimates are likely to be conservative given they typically exclude children of jail inmates. Although recent research suggests that parental incarceration leads to increases in children’s antisocial behavior, particularly in boys of incarcerated fathers, there have been fewer attempts to understand how parental incarceration histories are linked to changes in children’s problem behavior trajectories. Developmental, life course criminology suggests that transitions, such as parental incarceration, can serve as turning points that alter children’s trajectories of problem behaviors, such as aggression and delinquency. Furthermore, family context, such as parent-child contact and relationship quality, may potentially moderate this relationship. The purpose of this dissertation is to address these questions by analyzing data from prospective, longitudinal data on two generations using a multilevel, growth curve model and time-varying measures of parental incarceration and children’s problem behaviors. Doing so will illuminate the dynamic aspects of parental incarceration and child wellbeing, while also identifying whether family context conditions this relationship.

Author

• Mauri Matsuda, University of Maryland, College Park