Commentary – December 2009
Susan D. Phillips, PhD
Assistant Professor, Jane Addams College of Social Work
suephi@uic.edu
Several of the research recommendations in the Council’s report focus on collecting national data (see examples in the side bar). For instance, the report calls for the collection of data on the lifetime prevalence of parental incarceration, needs of children of incarcerated parents, risk exposure, and use of public programs and services. It also calls for research to understand differences among various subgroups of children (e.g., those with incarcerated mothers versus fathers versus both, those whose parents serve short sentences versus long sentences, boys versus girls, and so forth). The Council’s various recommendations differ with respect to how quickly they would yield data and the nature and quality of that data, with the more rigorous and informative research taking longer and costing more. The common limiting factor is that knowledge from these studies would have to be subsequently translated into policy and practices that actually do something to change the circumstances of children of incarcerated parents.
An applied research network could also produce data on children of incarcerated parents in different locales throughout the country leading to a refined understanding of the different needs among this group of children. The difference is that it would be combined with an infrastructure for developing or modifying services in response to new knowledge, evaluating the effectiveness of those services, and for providing training and technical assistance to help others outside of the network adopt and implement new practices.
Other recommendations in the Council’s report pertain to ways of using administrative data from State agencies and from existing service programs to create a multi-site dataset that could be used for research. There are a number of methodological challenges to this, but data of this nature could provide new knowledge about the effectiveness of existing services in different contexts as well as the costs of parental incarceration. An applied research network could produce the same data, but with the involvement of people who are working in concert with service providers and interventionists to make certain the data are relevant to policy and practice.
The Council also notes the need to evaluate programs and practices. This is the area in which there is currently the biggest gap in knowledge. Many new programs have emerged to address needs of children with incarcerated parents in the last two decades, but there is virtually no information about if, or how, these programs benefit children. An applied research network could provide much needed information about “what works” and for which children.
In addition, the Council’s report includes a recommendation to identify an institution or organization to archive, synthesize, and disseminates findings from research on children of incarcerated parents as well as research from other fields that points to potentially efficacious interventions to address the needs children’s need and promote the adoption and implementation of effective interventions. A national applied research network would provide a ready-made vehicle for this.
Lastly, the Council’s report also includes a recommendation for Federally-funded demonstration projects. An applied research network would not only include demonstration projects, but also evaluate their effects on child outcomes and connect service providers with service system administrators to deal with practical issues of sustainability.
The Council of State Governments’ Justice Center report is a monumental and important opportunity to gain Federal support to help children with incarcerated parents. However, in order to capitalize on this opportunity, we need to be able to respond clearly and concisely when Federal policymakers ask, “What do you want me to do”? In terms of the Council’s research recommendations, the straightforward answer is fund the development and operation of a national applied research network.
Comments on CSG Recommendations for Research Describing Children of Incarcerated Parents and Testing Hypotheses about the Long-term Adverse Consequences of Parental Incarceration
Collect data from parents in prison as part of the National Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities.
Data from this survey is used in the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ Report Parents in Prison and Their Minor Children. It provides data on the number of incarcerated persons who have children, the amount and contact parents have with their children before and during their current prison sentences, and children’s current living arrangements. The survey is an important source of basic information on parents in prison that should continue to be published. However, it is of limited value when it comes to understanding the consequences of parental incarceration for children because it only provides a snap shot of an isolated moment in children’s lives and does not provide data about children’s outcomes or factors influencing their outcomes.
Incorporate questions about parental incarceration into other existing national data collection activities.
Examples of ongoing national data collection efforts include the Department of Health and Human Services’ National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) and the U.S. Department of Education’s National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Adding items to these and other ongoing data collection effects that have been developed with input from individuals who have been affected by parental incarceration would provide new information about child outcomes Collecting this information however, is unlikely to provide answers to questions about the causal relationship between parental incarceration and child outcomes. That limitation notwithstanding, this strategy would generate new information in a relatively short amount of time at no cost additional cost.
Conduct a prospective longitudinal study.
A study of this nature could potentially answer questions about whether parental incarceration “causes” adverse child outcomes and, if so, the nature of risk pathways for different subgroups of children. This would be a costly endeavor and it would take several years to begin generating results.