ISSN: 2151-0806
The research on intergenerational crime has been relatively small compared with the importance and size of the problem. The research, nevertheless, has been good at heart, you can say, in terms of realistically assessing the problem and offering potential solutions and policies for the problem at hand. The scholarly literature and public policies can be grouped into three distinct periods for this analytical analysis. The first period covers the post-WWII to 1968 literature on parental incarceration and its effects on children. The second period starts with the declaration of the “war on crime” in 1968 and encapsulates a generation of children of the incarcerated to 1990. The third period covers the 1990s to the present in which more and more people started to see the major negative effects and failures of the “war on crime,” especially with regards to the current and former children of incarcerated parents. The scholarly literature on children of incarcerated parents was very sparse and haphazard prior to 1968 and the “war on crime.” Some of the books include Norman Fenton’s The Prisoner’s Family (1959), Serapio Zalba’s Women Prisoners and Their Families (1964), and Pauline Morris’ Prisoners and Their Families (1965). Fenton’s study was on the counseling of inmates’ families. It was a groundbreaking perspective on the effects of imprisoning parents. Fenton encouraged all levels of corrections to focus on assisting families of the incarcerated and incorporating the overall treatment into the correctional programs. Fenton investigated first-hand the corrections system in California and looked at how the prison administrators dealt with the family dimension at all stages of incarceration. Fenton concluded that more and better training of prison staff in this area was necessary and he encouraged much more opportunities for prisoners and their families to bond (Fenton, 1959). Zalba’s book on female prisoners was one of the first of its kind in terms of examining the prisoner-mother. Zalba was part of a California government study on the largest female prison in the United States. Zalba’s evaluation was intended to help incarcerated mothers and their families, especially the children. The initial understanding was that children were seriously affected by their mothers’ incarceration. Zalba’s findings included the need for more funding for families of the incarcerated and much better coordination and services among the relevant state agencies in dealing with the issue (Zalba, 1964). Morris’ book was one of the first to look at the families and incarceration issue on a national level. Morris had a well-structured analytical approach that looked comprehensively at incarcerated parents and their families through a scientific study. With a variety of numbers and statistical analysis, Morris concluded that much more needed to be done at all levels to assist family members of the incarcerated. Morris laid down the extent of the problem and demonstrated that current programs were undermining families or were uncoordinated. Morris declared that a strong, stable family throughout the incarceration process was essential to eventual and successful prisoner reentry (Morris, 1965). As the clarion call in 1968 to make war on millions of Americans for even the pettiest and nonviolent of crimes, the literature on families of the incarcerated started to grow, but only so slowly. For the first few decades after 1968’s declaration of a war on crime, there were several more books and articles that grabbed scholars’ attention, though little of the public’s. These Peace Studies Journal, Vol. 6, Issue 3, July 2013
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