In general terms, the formula for improving health and well-being can be reduced to two simple actions increase protective factors and reduce risk factors. In reality, however, such course of action is much more complex because protective and risk factors are multilayered and cannot necessarily be disentangled from the multisystemic constructs from which they are formed. Health outcomes measure the intersection of multiple factors such as socioeconomics, behavior, and policy as they relate to various populations. Children of incarcerated parents, like any population, develop from the causal chain of these various factors, which lead to measurable outcomes in health, function, and well-being.
Parental incarceration is considered one of the ten most adverse childhood experiences and are linked to a range of negative health outcomes throughout the child’s life course. However, the intersection of social determinants associated with incarceration, such as poverty, mental health issues, and multisystemic racism, cannot be isolated. As such, whether the health outcomes are due to the incarceration itself, to other experiences, or the combination thereof, remains unclear. What is clear is that parental incarceration is a punishment shared by the children left in its wake, who are vicariously sentenced to a lifetime of economic disparity.
Dimensions of Impact
The economic hardship faced by children of incarcerated parents is led by an array of increased risks that lay the groundwork for disadvantage. These risks involve higher rates of psychological trauma, depression, anxiety, aggression, antisocial behavior, and juvenile delinquency. Academic and school-based problems are also prevalent and include increased rate of suspension, academic failure, drop-out, and extended absences. Stigma associated with incarceration contributes to stress proliferation and poorer overall physical health outcomes. These factors contribute to long-lasting harm regarding the children’s education and income, often restricting economic mobility across generations.
The numbers are alarming. More than 50 percent of incarcerated people in the United States are parents to children under the age of 18-years, totaling 2.7 million children. More than 5.7 million children (one in 12) will experience the impact of parental incarceration during their childhood. What is perhaps most disturbing is the associated racial disparity: compared to 3.6 percent of White children, 24.5 percent of Black children will have an incarcerated parent before their 14th birthday.
The racial disproportion cannot be viewed without also recognizing three correlating statistics. First, two-thirds of all incarcerated parents are serving time for non-violent crimes. Second, the Black population is statistically no more likely to commit crime than the White population, yet Black people are incarcerated at six times the rate of White people. Third, just 25 years ago, one in every 125 children had an incarcerated parent, but despite crime having since steadily decreased, the figure has shifted to one in every 28 children. From this perspective, the social structures that determine economic health outcomes for children of incarcerated parents are the same structures that built mass incarceration, took particular aim at the Black community, and expected the children to “pick themselves up by their bootstraps” despite far-reaching barriers and inequalities.
Social Determinant: Anti-Drug Policies
In 1980, there were approximately 500,000 Americans behind bars. Over the following decades, the incarcerated population increased by 300 percent to 2.3 million (more than 1 in 100) adults. The onset of mass incarceration connects to America’s antidrug crusade, which implemented sudden and harsh penalties for drug-related crime. In 1982, the Reagan administration officially announced the United States’ War on Drugs. Between 1980 and 1984, federal law enforcement budgets increased from 165 million dollars to over two billion dollars and continued to increase by the billions throughout the decade. Simultaneously, substance use education, treatment, and prevention services’ funding were dramatically reduced.
During this time, the Anti-Drug Abuse Acts of 1986 and 1988 were signed into law, which mandated minimum five-year sentencing for people convicted of a drug offense including first time offenders. The Clinton Administration of the 1990s expanded upon punitive sentencing and signed into law a 30-billion-dollar crime bill, enlarging state and local police forces even more. The bill also authorized the “three strikes and you’re out” law that mandated life sentences for third time drug offenses. Incarceration rates exploded, the magnitude of which was unprecedented in world history, and Black communities, still reeling from cumulative oppression, were again disproportionately targeted.
Social Determinant: Multisystemic Racism
Historically racist housing and education policies resulted in on-going segregation and economic disparity within Black communities. The anti-drug movement weaponized these disparities by implementing policies and procedures aimed at policing and punishing Black communities, despite strong evidence illustrating they were no more likely to participate in drug activity than other races. In fact, studies indicated that White people were almost twice as likely to be in possession of illegal substances than people of color; yet, stop and frisk procedures utilized racial profiling tactics that resulted in disproportionate arrests of Black people.
Critical statistics to consider regarding mandatory sentence policies are that White people used both cocaine and crack cocaine at higher rates than Black people; however, Black people used cocaine at much lower rates than White people. Despite crack cocaine being more prevalent among White people, Black people were arrested at a much higher proportion and consequently stigmatized as the harborers of the crack cocaine epidemic. Uncoincidentally, from 1986 to 2010 when the Fair Sentencing Act was passed, possession of crack cocaine resulted in a minimum sentence 100 times more severe than sentences for possession of powder cocaine. The structural racism within the criminal justice system weakened the already vulnerable economic health of poor communities, particularly Black populations. It also perpetuated harmful stereotypes that shaped the perception of who was deserving and undeserving of economic support.
Social Determinant: Access to Resources
In the United States, a strong predictor of one’s economic achievement is their parent’s income. Another obstacle put in place by anti-drug policies was exclusion from antipoverty programs after any one felony drug conviction including possession of marijuana. While ostensibly aimed at deterring offenders, it concurrently punished their children, who were also evicted from public housing, denied food and housing assistance, and burdened by their parent’s inability to access student loan benefits. This form of material deprivation for children of incarcerated parents intensified economic instability, particularly for Black households, and suppressed intergenerational mobility.
Next Steps for Social Work Practice
Social work ethics are anchored in commitment to upend oppressive structures that obstruct human rights and social justice. Additionally, social work believes that individuals should be granted access to the resources necessary to develop freely and without domination from others in order to fully realize their potential. With respect toward these standards, social workers share a responsibility in promoting the well-being of children of incarcerated parents. To do so requires social work practice affiliate with progressive ideology committed to major policy reform including the following.
· Repeal the war on drugs by reducing the length of sentences for non-violent crime and expanding alternative forms of rehabilitation in order to reduce separation of children and their parents.
· Reinvest funds allocated for militaristic policing into the expansion of vital community resources aimed at addressing and preventing the root causes of crime, such as education and job training, substance use treatment, mental health services, mentorships and other opportunities for youth.
· Pass laws that prohibit employers from asking about criminal history on job applications in order to improve reentry employment opportunity and economic mobility.
· Remove lifetime restrictions from welfare benefits for people with felony convictions in order to ensure individuals’ and families’ basic needs are met.
· Undo multisystemic privilege and oppression by identifying and dismantling policies and institutions that reinforce racism.
· Promote change in community attitudes, beliefs, and social norms that perpetuate harmful stereotypes and place stigma on vulnerable populations.
Forty years later, the war on drugs has managed to cost taxpayers more than 51 billion dollars each year, propel the United States into the highest incarceration rate in the world, reinforce multisystemic racism, and radically fail to curtail drug use. Overdose deaths, drug-related violence, and substance use disorder all continue to climb, while Black communities continue to suffer more acutely under the cumulative damage of grossly unequal criminal justice treatment. All the while, children impacted by parental incarceration are increasingly left behind with mounting disadvantage. The health, function, and well-being of these children and the generations to follow requires that we as a society put our policies on trial and judge them not for their intent, but for their impact.
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