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Home > Case Support > Incarcerated Parents Project > IPP Resources > What’s the Research Saying > LITERATURE > Parent-Child Visits
Parent-Child Visits

*Please note: This page is still in progress. More links will be posted soon.*

(in alphabetical order)

 

WDA IPP Publications 

This Incarcerated Parents Project policy report provides a summary of social science literature and Washington statutory framework supporting the policy of encouraging child-incarcerated parent visitation at Washington’s Department of Corrections (DOC) prisons.

This policy report was submitted in support of an educational briefing to the King County Council Law & Justice Committee asking that the county institute contact visits for children and their incarcerated parents. Published on May 9, 2017.

This presentation outlines social science literature on the why child welfare social workers should support increased visitation between children and their incarcerated parents, the benefits of prison visits for child well-being, and better outcomes for children.  Includes photos of child-incarcerated parent visits at DOC.

 

Advocacy Reports

This declaration was an exhibit used in a litigation between a group of plaintiffs and the county jail they were suing over jail visitation.  In addition, to the expert’s CV attached to the declaration, it includes his expert opinions (starting on page 5) answering the following questions:  (1) What role do visits play in promoting the emotional well-being of people detained in jail?; (2) What role do visits play in reducing misconduct inside jails and otherwise improving safety of the jail facility?; (3) What role do visits play in reducing recidivism and improving community safety outside the jail?; and (4) What does the research say about how policymakers should evaluate the costs and benefits of a policy authorizing in-person contact visits.

 

Policy Reports

Because research has shown that contact with loved ones is a critical factor in improving outcomes for incarcerated people returning home, prison systems are increasingly turning to video technology as another medium beyond in-person visits for face-to-face contact. Washington State began introducing video services in its prisons in 2013. This report examines who has used Washington State’s video service since its inception, how service use affected the number of in-person visits people in prison received, and whether it had any effect—either as a stressor or a source of motivation—on their behavior. Key takeaways include that people who regularly used video services experienced a significant increase in the number of in-person visits they received, suggesting that video services helped people strengthen bonds with their loved ones, but that high costs and poor-quality service meant that video services alone may not be enough to overcome the difficulties some people experience in remaining connected to their communities.

This publication reviews the social research and studies examining whether children at risk of foster care placement are better off staying in their homes with some level of support.

This report outlines ideas for improving the success of parent-child visits in prison. Noting that children that have regular and positive visitation experiences are likely to have better attachment with parental figures, higher self-esteem, and decreased behavior problems and that prison visitation is a mechanism to facilitate child adjustment to parental incarceration. The author further noted that these visits, if successful, can be the difference between a child having a prosperous and productive future or the same fate as their parent.

This policy brief seeks to document the mostly negative consequences of primarily paternal incarceration on children, to describe policies that would help children already impacted and would diminish rates of incarceration, to demonstrate that parental incarceration is common, unequally distributed, and largely detrimental to child well-being.

In this policy brief, the authors present three evidence-based policy recom­mendations that address key barriers to parent-child contact during parental incarceration: cost of visits and phone calls; corrections’ visiting spaces and prac­tices; and limited options for children to remain in contact with their parents.

This Note proposes a model statute that would change visitation protocol to facilitate a clear-cut set of visitation processes that are tailored to ensure prison safety while also fostering and maintaining a positive relationship between a minor child and his/her incarcerated parent.

This brief highlights opportunities to promote early relational health with policy change and investments, including with existing programs, pandemic funding, and pending legislation in Congress.

On May 12, 2017, CANTASD hosted a discussion among experts and practitioners in the field to discuss the impact of parental incarceration on children and families. More than 15 people participated in the discussion. They represented diverse stakeholders, including national experts on the impact of incarceration on children and families; state departments of corrections; state child- and family-serving agencies; local programs working with the families of the incarcerated; and several federal agencies. Major themes and ideas raised by the participants are summarized below.

This tip sheet outlines considerations for parent-child visits at the jail or prison and who to plan for successful parent-child visits.

This tip sheet was written by youth who have or have had incarcerated parents for youth who have incarcerated parents.  The purpose is to provide words of support and encouragement.

  • Why Maintain Relationships by Ann  Adalist-Estrin, Rutgers University National Resource Center on Children and Families of the Incarcerated

While the NRCCFI CIP Library is under review the above external text links to the original resources. This fact sheet summarizes questions facing incarcerated parents seeking to maintain their connections to their children and seeks to provide answers, including: Is prison visiting good for the child? Is it good for the incarcerated parent? Is it good for the family? 

 

Reports related to Dependency Court-Involved Families

Current research shows consistent and frequent visitation between parents and their children in out-of-home care can reduce trauma for children. Partners for Our Children (POC), in close collaboration with (WA State) Children’s Administration, aims to address this by developing a first-of-its-kind parent support program designed to improve the quality of parent-child visits.

This information memorandum provides information on research, best practices, resources and recommendations for providing children and youth in out-of-home care safe, meaningful and high frequency family time that strengthens the family, expedites reunification and improves parent and child well-being outcomes.

Research shows there is a strong connection between family time and safe reunification. Quality family time is a key indicator of earlier, and safer, reunifications. This article highlights practices that can improve the experience and outcomes for the child and family.

This report consists of an analysis of the strategies and associated outcomes related to efforts to improve the visitation system for children in out-of-home care and was prepared in accordance with the budget proviso in Substitute Senate Bill 5883, §202 (14) (2017).

This article describes how to make supported visits a powerful child welfare tool. Children’s reactions to visits, parent’s and foster parent’s ambivalence about visits, and foster parents’ responses to visits are discussed. Using visits to help parents improve their ability to meet their children’s needs is also discussed. Next, the article describes a proposal for a visit program that involves the following: visit support during the first month after removal, supported visits after the first month in care, transition to reunification supports, transition to planning for another permanent home, and support for foster parents.

The purpose of this document is to provide Washington State judicial officers and legal professionals with developmentally appropriate guidance for determining visitation (hereafter called Family Time) in dependency cases involving young children, birth to 5 years old.

 

Social Research (coming soon)

The purpose of this study was to explore the reasons why certain children, unlike other children, visit their incarcerated parents and what factors determine a positive or negative impact for the child.

This study of parental incarceration in South Korea examines effects of changes in intra-family relationships after parental incarceration on internalizing behaviors of the children of incarcerated parents. Finding in part that incarcerated parents who had more frequent family contact were more likely to perceive improvements of all forms of intra-family relationships during incarceration. 

This blog reviews the policy and practice of using video calls to maintain parent-child visits while a parent is incarcerated which expanded during the pandemic.  It is essential that prison video visits supplement, not replace, existing child support systems, including relatives, caregivers, caseworkers, social workers, and schools.

More than five million children have experienced a co-resident parent leaving to spend time behind bars. Most incarceration occurs in jails, yet little is known about contact between parents in jail and their minor children.  In the present study, 315 fathers in jail with minor children (3–17 years old) were recruited from four jails in the Midwest region of the United States. Fathers in jail reported their demographic information, incarceration-related characteristics (e.g., number of prior arrests), children’s exposure to incarceration-related events, and frequency of contact with their children.

The study uses data from incarcerated individuals in a large Texas prison, surveyed before and approximately one month after release, to examine the relationship between family support and self-rated physical and mental health. These findings highlight the crucial role of emotional and instrumental familial support systems in fostering and reducing health disparities and promoting equity among justice-impacted populations. 

This study examined factors associated with the impact of prison visitation for children during maternal and paternal incarceration. Out of the 40 children examined for prison visitation experiences, 69 percent manifested negative responses; only 31 percent of the children responded positively to the prison visits. Typical negative responses were fear, anger, and crying that stemmed from the prison environment, invasive security procedures, and stern and unfriendly prison staff. Although recommendations are offered for improving prison visitation for children, the primary recommendations focus on reducing the use of imprisonment in favor of community supervision that not only facilitates a more normal interaction between offender parents and their children but also eliminates the burden on child caregivers of having to manage the logistics of a prison visit.

While research has consistently shown that in-person prison visitation is associated with reduced recidivism, much less is known about the effects of video visits. This study compares recidivism outcomes between 885 inmates who had at least one video visit and a matched comparison group of 885 who did not receive a virtual visit.  Finding in part that video visits reduced two measures of recidivism (general and felony reconvictions) but did not have a significant effect on the other two measures (violent reconviction and technical violation revocations).  Also finding that as the number of video visits increased, so did the size of the recidivism reduction, at least for general and felony reoffending.

The authors note that a number of studies have examined how children cope with visits and tried to address the question about whether or not visits are helpful for child and family well-being at the time of the parent’s incarceration; while other studies have examined the relation between visits and post-release adjustment, including relationship quality and parental recidivism. This chapter reviews these studies and provides recommendations for positive visit experiences.

This research report presents findings on what is known about the design, implementation, and effectiveness of parent-child visits, including eight structured interviews with research experts.

In this study, the researchers sought to determine the effects of parent visits on a range of psychological outcomes among children of incarcerated parents. Findings shed light on the importance of children’s visits with their incarcerated parent for later psychological outcomes. 

In this study, Dutch researchers reveal insights and findings form a unique survey of people in prison in their national prison system. Results indicate much variation in feelings (positive and negative) and topics of conversation (emotional and problem-solving topics), a strong link between topics and feelings, and show that visitors have more negative visitation experiences than incarcerated individuals.

This study collected data from two jail visit settings and examined whether the change in setting affected child behavior problems. Findings indicated that more frequent jail site video calls without security measures moderated child externalizing behaviors, while more frequent jail site Plexiglass visits with security measures increased child externalizing behaviors.