The Collateral Consequences of Imprisonment for Children discusses how parental incarceration effects the child. It first outlines the theoretical perspectives on how incarcerated parents effect children. Then it examines the extent of incarceration, costs, and corrections. Finally it analyzes the consequences of human and social capital that effects work for families of incarcerated parents. Before analyzing this article I must highlight that it is imperative to have cultural awareness before interpreting these types of articles. I disagree with one of of the opening statements on page 122 that says that minorities are arrested and put in jails are usually built in majority neighborhoods for profit. Although the prison industrial complex does exist at the expense of minority inmates, jails are usually not placed in majority neighborhoods, but on the outskirts of towns-typically in the middle of nowhere. You will not find a jail in a well off socioeconomic neighborhood, nor in the suburbs. They are typically hidden from society. I also would critique the authors' discussion on hip hop on page 133. It is dangerous, and culturally ignorant to say that hip hop culture is the diffusion of prison culture. Hip hop is a type of art style, and the author connecting hip hop to gangs and prison socialization is unfounded and stigmatizing. What I did find interesting in this article was the discussion on how the removal of one parent from participation in the child’s life is harmful and disruptive. I thought about the chapter in “The New Jim Crow” called “A New Kind of Passing” which discusses how some families try to hide the fact that the fact that a family member is incarcerated to avoid the stigma placed on the family. This elaboration was somewhat mentioned on this articlesstigmatization perception that incarceration is not it harmful to the family in regards to economic and social capital, but the negative stigma placed on the fact a parent is incarcerated can just as well hurt a child and other family members perception of self. I found the theoreis of socialization, and strain also interesting and important to consider while analyzing the correlation of incarceration with the mental and physical health problems that could develop during the of incarceration of the parent as discussed in the "Incarceration, Maternal Hardship, and Perinatal Health Behaviors" study. It was interesting how " The Collateral Consequences of Imprisonment for Children" was very relevant to my last visit to Lee Arrendale. One of the women spoke about how she had to miss a lot of her 4 year olds son’s early life. She missed him learn how to walk, talk, and speak, and how he refers to the jail as ‘mommy’s house’. The family encourages this so the child will not think ill of himself or his mother. The child also puts that he wishes for her to come home on every birthday and Christmas list so far. You can see how the socialization and stigmatization perspectives would fit into this Sources: Makariev, Drika Weller, and Phillip R. Shaver. "Attachment, parental incarceration and possibilities for intervention: An overview." Attachment & Human Development 12.4 (2010): 311-331) Dumont, Wildeman, Lee, Gjelsvik, Valera, Glarke, 2014, Incarceration, Maternal hardship, and perinatal health behaviors, Maternal child health journal 18:2179-2187 Wismont, 2000, The lived pregnancy experience of women in prison. Journal of Midwifery & Women's Health 45(4) 292-300 Read The Collateral Consequences of Imprisonment for Children Below
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The PEW's article on Georgia's 2013 Juvenile Justice Reform: New Policies to Reduce Secure Confinement, Costs, and Recidivism discusses Georgia Specifically and the financial problems in the state, and how the Georgia's House bill 242 was meant to bring about reform the the Juvenile Justice system. The bill is supposed to save $85 million through 2018 and to instead allocate that money to community based programs. (1) It is important to be smarter with taxpayer dollars to acknowledge the high trend of recidivism that is as high as 65% (4) I think it is a great idea to try to address the lack of community based options to reduce the problems such as the high level of misdemeanor, low level offenses that make up most of the cases of juveniles that are held in facilities (4) However, after reading this article I hope the officials who will allocate these funds plan to ask members of the community (possibly through town halls) how the money towards programming will be allocated. Unfortunately, many of these types of initiatives still do not reduce the amount of recidivism and incarceration due to the fact that these funds are being distributed by governmental officials who are disconnected from the community itself. While I was a volunteer for Leaders for a Beautiful Struggle in Baltimore, they emphasized to not stop at just giving finances to communities in need, but promoting social/cultural capital, by allowing the members in the community themselves to dictate and have say where the funds should be allocated and how. It promotes the issues to be solved in ways that are unique and effective for the community, and also promotes pride in the communities culture and the feeling that it can fix it's own problems if given the resources. The article also points out that there is a 'lack of community based options' and 'lack of uniform data collection' (5). I think it is important to prioritize these issues to be able to promote cultural capital to effectively allocate these funds. One way this could work is by having more presence in community conversations and having community ambassadors be able to speak to officials so that they can get the information they need and also allocate their funds correctly. By fostering these dialogues and empowering the community itself, this will show what community based options already exist and need to be supported as well as keeping track of what polices benefited and harmed the community in the past so that efforts aren’t repetitive, futile, or harmful in the future. Source: See below After reading The Impact of Incarceration on Women's Mental Health: Responses from Women in Max Security Prison, by Harner et all and Histories of Childhood Victimization and Subsequent Mental Health Problems, Substance Use, and Sexual Victimization for a Sample of Incarcerated Women in the US Tripodi et all it helped me conceptualize my previous visit to Lee Arrendale State Prison. The Study: The Impact of Incarceration on Women's Mental Health: Responses from Women in Max Security Prison was conducted by having women take a survey and then creating 12 focus groups interviewing women 1.5-2 hours. The study admitted that it was limited by the fact that they could only interview women in ‘incentive units’ and a women’s personal physical health, social support, access to resources, maturity, and life experience also plays its own role, and that the study’s three categories of their mental health improving, worsening, or no change as needed more deph and background information. I think the article, Histories of Childhood Victimization and Subsequent Mental Health Problems, Substance Use, and Sexual Victimization for a Sample of Incarcerated Women in the US Tripodi et all does a nice job of covering individual risk factors of why certain women can fall into those different categories. What especially stood out was the findings of how women’s mental health worsened in prisons due to stress, fear, being away from loved ones, access mental health care, worrying about their physical health, and poor treatment by correctional and health professionals. When visiting the women in Lee Arrendale, they mentioned all of these factors cause women to ‘break’ and ‘loose motivation’. They also discussed how they that felt like they were stuck in a world of psychological warfare. They are not allowed to build meaningful relationships with correctional officers, and are systematically treated as subhuman beings. The article also discusses how encouragement, properly taking medication, access to services, religion, and allowing time to heal personal wounds were common characteristics of women who got better mental health. I find this really ironic since after talking to the women in prison, they explained how women had to do a lot to advocate for themselves, and in an environment of systematic breaking of the psyche women start to feel they do not deserve the mental and physical treatment that they need (Let alone if they can afford their own medication, because in Lee Arrendale they have to pay for their own drugs). We as a class too only have access to the women in ‘incentive units’. It would be extremely beneficial to get perspectives of women outside of those units. During my visit the women explained that there are women in some units that eat concrete and paint and are not given any mental help, and that in every unit women are treated poorly even in their incentive unit where they are ‘model inmates’. I agree with Dr. Harper’s proposal of promoting prison officials to examine gender and trauma, but that it should go further than that: apply rehabilitation. Source:
Harner, Holly M., & Riley Suzanne. The Impact of Incarceration on Women’s Mental Health Responses From Women in a Maximum-Security Prison Qual Health Res January 2013 vol. 23no. 1 26-42. Link: http://qhr.sagepub.com/content/23/1/26.abstract |
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May 2016
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