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Incarceration Effects on a Child

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Incarceration Effects on a Child
Running Head: INCARCERATION EFFECTS

Incarceration Effects on a Child

Abstract

When a parent becomes incarcerated inside a prison whether, the offenders are not the only ones affected. The impact of incarcerating a guardian affects the family on the outside. The children and the remaining guardian, if any, face severe consequences. Studies have shown that children whose parent(s) is incarcerated leads to many psychological, emotional and social disturbances. Imprisonment, incarceration for any length of time, is a life-interrupting event that damages society. Prison rates are raising therefore more and more families being subjected to the effects on incarceration. More and more correctional institutions are accepting family pleas for more family visitation programs.

Incarceration Effects on a Child

This world today has too many children growing up without mothers and fathers. Many of these parents are not deceased which makes one question where are these caregivers? These guardians are in a place, a place where no one individual wishes to be, called prison. The number of prison inmates is rising and with that comes a higher number of children to be raised without one parent for a certain amount of time. More than five million people inside the United States of America are under the supervision of the criminal justice system. Many of these individuals are in a state or federal prison. According to the research of Eddy and Reid (2002), “Of the 1,366,721 inmates held in state or Federal prison in 1999, over half (i.c 721,500) were parents. These parents had an estimated 1,498,800 children under the age of 18 years (Eddy and Reid, 2002 p.1). This number has risen dramatically since 1990; in 1990 the amount of children affected by the loss of a parent due to incarceration was nearing 500,000 children (Eddy and Reid, 2002 p.1). These children who were already subjected to crime by their parents are now five times more likely than the average child to

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