Accentuating The Positive Or Eliminating The Negative? Paternal Incarceration And Caregiver-Child Relationship Quality

Mounting evidence links paternal incarceration to harmful outcomes for the children of incarcerated fathers. These findings hold across a host of important behavioral, developmental, and attainment outcomes, including mental health and behavioral problems, substance use, educational attainment, and social inequality. The process by which paternal incarceration causes poor outcomes is much less clear, however. Declines in quality parenting by the partners of former inmates represent one important domain where theory would suggest important effects but where the research evidence lags far behind. This Article analyzes the effects of paternal incarceration on parenting quality and finds that paternal incarceration has no effect on positive parenting behaviors but significantly increases problematic parenting behaviors, including negative conflict resolution tactics and physical abuse. The implications of the results for childhood well-being and development are also discussed. INTRODUCTION While prison population growth in the United States has leveled off (and is even declining in some states), 1 the legacy of mass incarceration and its so-called collateral consequences remain the focus of significant research attention. The consequences of mass imprisonment radiate far beyond the prison or its current inmate population. Research has shown effects of imprisonment and mass incarceration on the later life outcomes of former inmates in domains as varied as employment, marriage, physical and mental health, voting behavior, and social inequality. 2 Importantly, the pains of imprisonment are not limited to inmates; those who have never served time but are connected to current and former inmates through significant social ties often experience harm as well. 3 Among the " legal bystanders " influenced by mass imprisonment are the children of inmates. that incarceration's effects on social inequality are larger when estimated for children of inmates than when estimated for inmates themselves). Comfort's use of the " legal bystander " metaphor to describe the 2015] PATERNAL INCARCERATION AND PARENTING QUALITY 907 In the United States, more than 2.5 million minor children have a parent currently incarcerated, and the proportion of children who have ever experienced parental incarceration is much larger—especially since the dawn of the prison boom in the United States in the 1970s. 5 The children of incarcerated parents represent perhaps the most vulnerable and consequential group influenced by the prison boom in the United States. These children are far more disadvantaged relative to the average child, even prior to the imprisonment of their parents, and parental imprisonment represents yet another potentially harmful event …