Identifying Challenges to Parent-Child Contact When a Parent is in Prison

• In Event: An International Perspective on Children of Incarcerated Parents. Panel organized by the Spinhuis Center

Abstract

The challenge of maintaining child-parent contact during a parent’s incarceration is a vexing and persistent problem; many parents report that they never see their children during their imprisonment. Lack of contact is especially problematic because children would like to see their parent and ongoing connection with family during incarceration can increase the likelihood of successful reentry for someone returning home from prison. Although some families choose not to visit for personal reasons, many encounter difficulties presented by factors such as lack of transportation, inconvenient visiting hours and environments that are distinctly not friendly to children. The Philadelphia Prison System (PPS) operates five men’s prisons and one women’s prison, housing approximately 8,500 individuals. Most are awaiting trial or being detained for other reasons, but nearly 21% are serving sentences of up to two years. As part of an effort initiated by a task force on visitation working together with PPS, a survey of individuals visiting sentenced prisoners was taken in 2014. This paper will report on results of the survey, which included information on current visiting patterns, obstacles to children visiting their parents, attitudes toward proposed changes in visitation policies and differences by sex in visitation issues.

Authors

• Jane A. Siegel, Rutgers University

• Angela Silletti, Rutgers University