Prison Visitation and the Mental Health of Incarcerated Women: A Structural Perspective

• In Event: Prison Working Group: The intersection of family and incarceration: Mental health, parenting, and familly dynamics

Abstract

Past research on the mental health of incarcerated women has indicated that not receiving visitation from children and other family members has severe negative consequences for mental health outcomes. However, these past studies have yet to consider how the effects of visitation and family contact on the mental health of incarcerated women operate at the aggregate level. Using data on 1,490 women nested within 60 U.S. state prisons, I consider how the proportion of women in each prison that receive visits is associated with mental health outcomes across the prison, net of individual factors. Hierarchical linear regression models find that a higher proportion of incarcerated women who are mothers and whose children did not visit is associated with higher levels of depression for all women in the prison, even those without children. These results hold true even after controlling for the individual effects of family visitation for each individual woman. These results emphasize the importance of family visitation for the mental health of incarcerated women and further reinforce the idea that receiving visitation creates a positive environment in the prison. Additionally, this is one of the first studies that considers how the mental health of incarcerated women might be expressed through aggregate analysis of prison data.

Author

• Timothy Edgemon, University of Birmingham