Stigma Management among Children of Incarcerated Parents

ABSTRACT

The stigma of incarceration can extend beyond the offender to his or her family, yet we know very little about how children of incarcerated parents manage their spoiled identity. Using interviews with 32 college students whose parents were incarcerated during their childhood, this study explored their stigma management techniques. Through grounded theory analysis, it became apparent that participants separated themselves from their incarcerated parent, viewed their incarcerated parent as a role model, and framed parental incarceration positively. These techniques allowed them to sustain a prosocial identity in light of their experience of parental incarceration.

Acknowledgments

I thank Dr. Joanna Gregson and Dr. Sharon Oselin for their thoughtful feedback on the article. I also thank my research assistants—Jonathan Jackson, Katelyn Wattanaporn and Julie Dupuis—for their work on this project.

Notes

¹ Two participants were incarcerated as adults; three were arrested, but not incarcerated, as juveniles. These five participants all described turning points that put them back on prosocial life trajectories.

² Although six months is not a prison sentence, this minimum length was chosen to include parental time in jail or prison, and to also avoid participants whose parents had just spent the weekend in jail.

³ My research assistant conducted 5 of the 32 interviews.

⁴ One participant had completed his/her M.A. and was looking into Ph.D. programs at the time of the interview.

⁵ I had difficulty recruiting male participants and was not able to interview equal numbers of males and females.

⁶ One participant indicated that she did not know what crimes her parents committed.

⁷ If a participant’s parent had been incarcerated multiple times or both parents had been incarcerated, I used the longest incarceration for this average.

⁸ Two participants did not respond to my request for a follow-up interview.

⁹ The descriptions of parental crimes are based on participant’s understanding and knowledge of their parent’s crimes and incarceration. Additionally, in the four cases where parents were incarcerated during the time of the interview, they are referred to as currently incarcerated.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kate Luther

KATE LUTHER is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Pacific Lutheran University. Her research interests include prison parenting programs and children of incarcerated parents. Her work has appeared in Family Relations and International Journal of Sociology of the Family, and she co-edited Teaching Criminology at the Intersection: A How-to Guide for Teaching about Gender, Race, Class and Sexuality (Routledge).