Research Paper on Incarceration

Introduction

Incarceration rates in America and around the world have been on the rise in the last couple of decades, a trend that does not seem to be slowing down anytime soon. This means that more and more families worldwide are experiencing familial incarceration than ever before. The incarceration of a family member causes trauma, and can greatly disrupt an individual's life, leading to multiple emotional and social difficulties that may develop into life-long problems. Other effects of parental incarceration are; disrupted parent-child relationships, changes to the familial support network, as well as hardships for schools, human service agencies, health care agencies, and the judicial system. Consequently, psychological sufferings will affect families whose members have been incarcerated.

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Family Impact on Incarceration

According to Lee, Porter, Comfort (2014), there tends to be more disruption for the family when a family member is incarcerated leading to an increased risk for psychopathology and insecure attachment. There is an increased disintegration of the family's behavior when it is a family member incarcerated. The arrangement for the care of the other family members will be disintegrated usually if a family member is imprisoned further away. Also, the members of familial incarceration are at an increased risk of behavioral problems (Family Relations, 2013, p.585).

Parental Incarceration

In the case of parental incarceration, the family is more disintegrated in the situation of a father figure or mother figure being incarcerated (Brown et al., 2016). Children of parental incarceration often struggle with their attachment security, which effects the children's psychological health. There are various reasons that their security is affected, including: separation between the parent and child; complicated explanations of the legal process; limited contact with the parent with the inclusion of restrictions attached by the facility; and unstable arrangements provided by the caregiver (Lee, Porter and Comfort, 2014). They continued by stating that these children are likely to experience interruptions in their sleeping, and their eating, and stress with symptoms of depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) associated with the arrest, the legal process, and the incarceration. Another complication often associate with the incarceration of their parent is Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE), which is when children are exposed to long-term stressful life events that causes their neurological development to become interrupted, resulting in the child's inability to cognitively cope with their negative emotions. If the stressful disruptions continue, the child often develops negative coping skills such as substance abuse or self-harm, as they get older, usually during adolescence. ACE is contributory to behavioral and social struggles (Dube & Felitti, 2010).

Children Witnessing Arrest

Studies have shown that witnessing the arrest of a parent, and dealing with their subsequent incarceration can cause trauma, and is likely to have serious and long-lasting effects. (Roberts et al., 2013) Infants and toddlers who experience trauma, such as the arrest of a family member are more likely to display internalizing symptoms such as emotional distress, fear of being alone, increased arousal, and numbing of responsiveness. (Roberts et al., 2013) Infants and toddlers are less likely to display externalizing behaviors, but if they do, they are likely to show excessive irritability, immature behavior, sleep disturbances, and regression in toileting and language. (Roberts et al., 2013) School-aged children do not yet have the coping mechanisms necessary to adequately deal with trauma exposure and may display more externalizing behaviors; while the stigma attached to having an incarcerated parent can cause children of this age group to exhibit delinquent behaviors like aggressiveness, running away, and truancy. (Roberts et al., 2013) Among older children, behavioral problems manifested in ways such as increased irritability and immature behavior, and they were more likely to experience bulling and teasing due to the incarceration of their parent. (Roberts et al., 2013) Researchers found that the clinical rates of emotional and behavioral problems of children in their sample ranged between 51% and 54%, which was more than twice the rate of children in the general population. (Roberts et al., 2013)

Spousal Incarceration

Einat et al. (2015) pint out that spousal incarceration is another area that experiences disenfranchised grief. When a partner is incarcerated, the other partner goes through psychological suffering before finally accepting the outcome. According to Schlafer and Wanous (2014), marital relationships are stressed when a partner is incarcerated. In some cases the stress is the one that leads to partners being incarcerated while at times the separation and the problems facing the sentences. Weak relationships are mostly affected and usually end up breaking leading to more stressors that are psychological.

According to Western & Muller (2013), the past three decades has a high number of African-American men being incarcerated. Consequently, many African-American females have experienced psychological consequence of separation and loss. In most cases, the spouses with incarcerate spouse has high chances of being affected that is prior to and after the incarceration. These women usually experience financial hardships, anticipated dreams and hopes, and loss of the relationship. In this manner, the psychological disturbance is recognized through the loneliness, stress and feelings of being depressed. The incarceration of a loved one subjects African American women to social and personal costs associated with separation. This in turn is a symbolic loss. With regards to Dennison et al. (2013), the incarcerated and the loved one usually feel a deep loss that commix with other complexities. Consequently, the people with incarcerated loved ones usually experience confusion in assuming new roles in the relationship and adopting to a loved one`s incarceration.

The incarceration of a loved possesses a physical element of loss, which takes different forms. The loved ones experiences physical separation due to geographical separation, loss of contact with loved one, and more traumatizing is the threat of the relationship being dissolved. Lee and Wiledman's (2011) points out that the adverse psychological effects of the affected loved ones bring health stressors. The stressor make these loved one vulnerable such that they cannot participate in preventive health care.

Sibling Incarceration

When looking at sibling incarceration, it can only be understood as losing a sibling physically through the jail system despite the psychological it places on younger siblings. The uncertainty of keeping in contact with an incarcerated person who is in prison for their personal behaviour is another form of disenfranchised grief (Robillard et al., (2016). Sibling incarceration creates a sense of shame and guilt to immediate family members who have trouble in morning, discussing or coping with their family member being incarcerated (Green et al. (2006). Because of the stigmatization, many families (parents and siblings) have failed to disclose the issue of their immediate family member being incarcerated. Due to the social surroundings, the families suffer an additional loss based on isolation.

According to Brown et al. (2010), most studies have overlooked the psychological stress associated with sibling incarceration. The deficit research in sibling incarceration provides this thesis study in examining what sibling incarceration poses on sibling relationships. Meek, Lowe & McPhillips (2010), claim that there is unknown number of children are affected psychologically on the basis that sibling is incarcerated. Many families have failed to disclose their child or sibling incarceration owing to the embarrassment and stigmatization it poses on the social systems and the community around them. The seclusion by these families creates further isolation, which has the ability to disrupt the family system. Consequently, other sibling could face additional psychological disturbance.

According to Boss (2006), psychological disturbance associated with sibling incarceration leaves a person overwhelmed, vulnerable and defenseless. The memory of sibling incarceration creates an intensified stress and relentless fear that other siblings remain vulnerable to future painful experiences. Even though non-offending siblings can be kept at bay from the legal processes that comes with the incarceration, the non-offending siblings are likely to feel traumatized during the arrest or visitation process. It is evident that from sibling incarceration, brothers and sisters are the likely population that experiences disenfranchised grief from sibling incarceration

Even though disenfranchised grief on the incarceration of senior citizen is never researched, is has a detrimental effects on immediate family members. Grandparents are figurative figures in any family and their arrest extends a great loss to their children and grandchildren.

Disenfranchised Grief Due to Familial Incarceration

The incarceration of a family member is an involuntary loss for the immediate family member or members. According to Lee, Porter & Comfort (2014), the various stresses in the relationship to the familial incarceration may intrude on the relationship between the immediate family members, affecting the attachment. Although, the stresses of societal disgrace and the traumas of the legal process (i.e. arrest, news awareness) explains the more general sense of insecurity. The various challenges that immediate family members experience during familial incarceration may threaten their attachment security. The explanations of what is happening or going to happen during this time are ambivalentcreating a sense of uncertainty and questiona...