Family life before and during incarceration

ABSTRACT

It is widely recognized that a father’s incarceration strains a family, but too little is known about preincarceration family life, how families divided by incarceration navigate the imprisonment, and what they expect for postrelease family life. We analyze data from 1,482 incarcerated men and their partners to examine the assets and challenges that families brought with them into the incarceration experience; their considerable efforts to maintain family life during an incarceration in the face of physical separation and other obstacles; and the areas of convergence and divergence in their expectations for family life after the male partner’s release.

KEYWORDS:

• Child well-being
• family
• incarceration
• intimate partnerships
• parenting

Acknowledgement

The authors wish to thank Ms. Linda Mellgren and Ms. Erica Meade of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for their thoughtful guidance on this work and Dr. Creasie Finney Hairston of the University of Illinois School of Social Work for her vision for this work and this special issue.

Notes

Due to the study recruitment approach, all women in the full study sample are included in this couples subsample. Compared to the 509 men in the full study sample whose partners did not complete a baseline interview, the 1,482 men in the couples subsample were more likely to report being in an intimate relationship with their study partners, were happier with their relationships, had more children, were more likely to report contact with their study partners and with their children during the current incarceration, had been in prison for a shorter time, and reported fewer transfers and administrative violations (perhaps due to their shorter stay).

The study selected one minor child about whom more detailed survey questions were asked. Focal child selection favored children who were closest in age to 8 (for understanding milestones in child well-being longitudinally) and who were coparented by both members of the study couple. More details about focal child selection can be found in “The Multi-Site Family Study: Design and Sample” article in this issue.

P < .05, p < .01, and p < .001 for matched pair t-test of differences between male and female respondents in each couple.

Intimate partner violence questions were only asked of couples who reported being in a relationship with one another prior to the incarceration. Questions about partner violence and other abuse focused on specific behaviors in the categories of emotional abuse, physical violence, sexual violence, and coercion. Consistent with the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS2) approach, survey items were constructed to ask about perpetration and victimization for each behavior in close succession in order to increase reporting of victimization. A condensed version of the CTS2 was used that shortened subscales on coercion and omitted subscales on injury and negotiation. To produce couple-level indicators of violence, reports from each member of a study couple were analyzed together. “No violence” was identified when neither member of the couple reported any physical abuse perpetration or victimization; “one-sided violence” was identified when one or both members of the couple reported female-on-male physical violence and neither member reported male-on-female physical violence, or when one or both members of the couple reported male-on-female physical abuse and neither reported female-on-male physical abuse. “Bilateral violence” (which does not imply symmetry in each partner’s experience of violence, since such situations are often asymmetrical) was identified when one or both members of the couple reported male-on-female physical violence in the relationship and one or both members of the couple reported female-on-male physical violence. This approach was designed to capture instances of violence and abuse in relationships more comprehensively than relying only on the individual report of one member of a couple.

Additional information

Funding

This article was prepared by RTI International with support from the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation and the Office of Family Assistance/Administration for Children and Families within the United States Department of Health and Human Services (Contract HHSP2332006290YC, September 2006). The views, opinions, and findings expressed in this document are those of the report authors and do not necessarily represent the official positions and policies of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.