The Mental and Physical Effects on Incarcerated Children and Their Parents - Research Proposal Example

?Running Head: Research Proposal Research Proposal [Institute’s Research Proposal The researcher intends to carry out a qualitative research on the mental and physical effects on incarcerated children and their parents. In this regard, the proposal includes specific aims and objectives of the proposed research that focus on the recognition of different effects of incarceration on children, as well as their parents globally, specifically in context of the United States. The proposal includes brief literature review relating different existing perspectives on the impact of child incarceration. The researcher will be utilizing secondary research methodology as basis of the proposed research while benefiting from primary research method to validate analysis of secondary method. It is anticipation of the researcher to complete the study in a period of nineteen weeks. Introduction The number of youth offenders in the United States has risen greatly in the last few decades, which in turn has been extremely detrimental to the lives of these youth’s families. There is no doubt that a person who breaks the law deserves punishment, as the only fair solution. However, research shows that child imprisonment is not an effective punishment for these juvenile delinquents, and does not decrease the incidence of youth crime. Instead, historical data indicates that this youth crime rate has actually risen as the rate of youth imprisonment increased. Thus, the proposed research aims to analyze several dimensions of youth incarceration, focusing on how it affects both the children and their parents. Youth crime has, in fact been a pressing social issue for every government, as they endeavor to rid society of anti-social agents from the very roots. This has been unsuccessful so far, however, due to the high rates of unemployment and poverty. Another important factor to consider is that these young offenders are not the only major stakeholders in this situation, but so are families and communities. The US Government admits how it is inevitable that these young offenders receive punishment for their actions, in order to make society safe. However, as research shows, these imprisonments, and harsh penalties are unsuccessful in improving the offenders and correcting their behavior. While authorities work tirelessly on finding an alternative and effective ways of preventing these youths from this dangerous downfall, it seems that only the strategy of youth imprisonment is actually applicable in real life, despite its negative effects. Research Statement In this manner, the researcher will focus on the following research statement to acquire the aims and objectives of the proposed research: “To identify and analyze the mental and physical effects on incarcerated children and their parents” Objectives This research has several objectives, which the researcher finds essential to the purpose of this topic. First, the researcher aims to delve into the numerous mental and physical effects that youth imprisonment has on children, and the effect of the same on the parents of these children. The propose research also aims to conduct further analysis on the long term impacts this incarceration will have on the lives of these children in the parents in the future. Finally, the study also plans to study whether the mental and physical effects of youth imprisonment yields an overall positive outcome or not. Significance This topic holds major significance across the globe, as one can come across thousands of families that would have affected by this problem. The findings of this study will also be successful in directing the government to designing more effective and beneficial strategies to deal with youth crime, in the US as well as the rest of the world. Literature Review Brief analysis of the literature (Pattillo, 2006) has indicated that incarcerated children and their parents confront huge number of difficulties. Many have undergone the shock of unexpected separation from their only caregiver, and the majority is susceptible to feelings of panic, nervousness, antagonism, depression, hopelessness, and guiltiness. They may be shifted from caretaker to caretaker. The behavioral outcomes can be harsh, lacking positive involvement, emotional withdrawal, failure in education, criminal behavior, and possibility of intergenerational imprisonment. However, these children appear to ‘fall through the cracks’ (Eddy & Poehlmann, 2010). “Police do not usually inquire on the time of arrest whether their inmates have children, nor do sentencing judges or correctional groups generally raise this question. In view of the fact that no organization gathers record about these children, it is uncertain how many are affected, who they are, or where they live” (Harris, Graham & Carpenter, 2010). According to estimation, 861,000 children in California have father or mother currently in California’s adult criminal justice system, which makes up almost nine percent of the state’s children (Burges et al., 2009). There is no definite figure because California does not ask for or maintain family information regarding detained or convicted individuals. Through comparison, while an anticipated 1.4 million children on a national scale have incarcerated parents, more or less 9 million children have parents who were jailed at some point in their children’s lives, and approximately 1.5 million children have gone through the incarceration (Harris & Oliver, 2010). Around 11 years ago, the dilemma finally started to spark awareness from social scientists (Wedge, 2002). School employees as well as child welfare workers are currently seeing more and more kids who have an existing or previous incarcerated parent. There is a better understanding of the volume, and greater need to realize what is going on; the risks such children face, the outcome this situation and the approach to help these children. Even though a perfect cause-and-effect link has not been seen, children of incarcerated parents are likely to have more arrests, as well as more issues with conduct, interaction, school, and substance abuse. Problems are severe when the mother is in prison or jail. It is more likely that the youngster will leave the residence, and live with grandparents. They are more expected to change their educational institutions and have a greater threat of substance abuse, and the father is as well likely to be incarcerated. A strong, close affection with another caregiver can tone down the hurt of incarceration (Bernstein, 2007). At one time, interventions are likely to stress on the parent, with slight or no focus on the caregiver, the quality of the house atmosphere, or the nature of the affection between child and caregiver, yet these are all significant to the mental, as well as physical wellbeing of child (Martone, 2005). Even though it is believed that staying in touch with an incarcerated parent will help the child, the truth is visits when the parent is behind bars are not always helpful. Other ways of staying in touch, such as letters, may be more helpful for children who are upset by prison visits. School districts are slowly attempting to deal with the additional requirements of these children. Incarcerated parents are one of the main reasons why many districts are having so many issues with absenteeism as well as graduation rates. Possibly, there is enormous percentage of children facing these setbacks. The long-term depiction is depressing. Children with imprisoned parent are at least two and a half times more likely to be imprisoned themselves. At times, care-reliant children live with their mother in jail (Bernstein, 2007). The age limit as well as maximum stay varies from state to state. Moreover, the provisions in support of the children are different. Not just the prison culture varies between states, also ideals on parenthood, family life and raising kids are different. This diversity is revealed in the variety of agreements and provisions. Several women in jail are main caretaker for children or others, whose imprisonment have a negative effect on their wellbeing. One main challenging concern in this situation is whether it is be feasible for babies as well as young children to stay in jail with their mothers. This is a complicated issue to respond given that, on the one hand, jails obviously do not offer a suitable atmosphere for babies, as well as for young children, whereas on the other hand, the compulsory parting of mothers and child is very adverse. The leading belief in every case has to be the wellbeing of the child. This indicates that in particular that any care given in custody should be the same as that offered within the outer community. “Where babies and young children are held in custodial settings, their treatment should be supervised by specialists in social work and child development. The goal should be to produce a child-centric environment, free from the visible trappings of incarceration, such as uniforms and jangling keys. Arrangements are made to ensure that the movement and cognitive skills of babies held in prison develop normally. In particular, they should have adequate play and exercise facilities within the prison and, wherever possible, the opportunity to leave the establishment and experience ordinary life outside its walls. Facilitating child minding by family members outside the establishment can also help to ensure that the burden of child rearing is shared. Where this is not possible, consideration should be given to providing access to creche-type facilities. Such arrangements can enable women prisoners to participate in work and other activities inside the prison to a greater extent than might otherwise be possible” (Yaffe & Hoade, 2000). From a psychological perspective, the duration of a stay in prison of a youngster with its mother is usually justified by the attachment theory, even though in a relatively contemporary perspective the young child does not have to get emotionally involved to its own biological mother. Hence, if there is a satisfactory substitute, such as the father, the grandmother, or a foster parent, a youngster could live outside the jail where its mother is custody. For instance, in some states, the mother-child affection within a home atmosphere is believed to be so important that mothers with kids below the age of three are jailed but put under house arrest. Until the child is ten years old, they pursue an alternative program outside jail. Research on the consequences of co-imprisonment of little children with their mothers does not reveal clear indication for growth or other harm to the youngster in comparison with other children. Especially, it is not simple to discover a trustworthy control group, and only observations are doubtful (Dixson-Haskett, 2010). At times, interpretations of children’s activities are untrustworthy like ‘kids being obsessed by keys, which might be usual for a two years old kid. Mainly in the case of pre-school kids, mothers indicate that their kids have problem in behaving themselves in the outer world, as in the traffic or while playing with other unfamiliar kids. A genuine concern is that through her child, the mother turns into a hostage within the suppressive prison system and even that a mother and child in a way become hostage for each other while building a detrimental symbiosis. Living in jail is infantilized. Experts have indicated that in such situations, when the mother has concerns, or she differs with some particular rule, “she will be considered as nasty” (Burges, Caselman, & Carsey, 2009). The authorities can exploit the mother by threatening to take the kid away, and the mother can claim amenities and make use of her kid, for example, by taking it to the court to manipulate the judge. The kid has its personal difficulties. Even the normal activities as well as illnesses of a child cause annoyance among the custodians, the mothers, as well as the other prisoners. Even within a separate mother-child unit, the mothers did not prefer each other to live together. If one youngster does not feel healthy and cries often, it has its effect on the other kids along with their mothers. In jail, there is not much seclusion as well as not much closeness, so mother and child, in a way, are in their seclusion predestined to each other (Bernstein, 2007). In the global foray, the stay of babies as well as young children in jail is condemned largely. “In the Summary Report Mothers and Babies in Prison it is said that prisons do not provide an appropriate environment for babies and young children, often causing long term developmental retardation. Yet, if babies and children are forcibly separated from their mothers, they suffer permanent emotional and social damage. Most prison systems provide some places for babies to stay with mothers but many hundreds of babies are nevertheless separated from their imprisoned mothers” (Bernstein, 2007). This report argues that a fresh approach is essential for those few mothers of young kids who commit serious offences and who are a hazard to the society, and that the vast mass of female criminals with young kids should be handled in the society. Even in a current prison system, with good intents on the part of the administration and good amenities for kids, there is a risk of misjudging the potential of creating a child-friendly environment in prison. Jail in itself is unable to get along with growing children. However, it can happen that, sometimes, there is no choice for a youngster other than to stay, and in that circumstances, the best atmosphere have to be produced. Cultural backgrounds may lead to various solutions, and a lot of creativeness of the prison administration is necessary. The educational circumstances in which the kid is confined must be assessed. Pertinent issues are the duration of the stay at the prison, the behavior, age, growth, and mobility of the child in addition to the option of getting in touch with peers and the outside world. “Attendance at an external creche allows a child to move outside prison, to obtain reassurance for his early fears of separation from the mother figure, to play, to interact with other children who do not live in his same situation, with less fear of new situations or of the unknown. It is worth repeating that to be kept continuously confined in prison strengthens the symbiosis between child and mother and reduces urges and stimuli, which gradually become weaker and poorer in terms of content, novelty and unpredictability” (Lee, Gentry & Laver, 2005). The growth of the child has to be part of a psychoanalysis program that goes well with the circumstances of the particular captive, her conditions, as well as her plans for the upcoming years. In social reality, not just the position of very young children, but of every child is closely tied with that of women. Children's constitutional rights can be abused to pressurize women into taking up their conventional and mostly secluded mother responsibility. Protecting children can mean controlling mothers, both in the private and public sphere. Children are regularly used as hostages to trap mothers in bad residence conditions as well as bad marriages. Moreover, women, as key caretakers, are financially reliant, underprivileged, as well as subjugated. Nonetheless, both children and women gain from their individual social networks. For this reason, the self-sufficient place of women with respect to the best interests of the child is significant. Excellent childcare services, for example, can do well to both mother as well as child. This stands true for both children in and outside jail. The need to retain contacts should not expose the kid to the ill effects of the jail experience or stop the mother from getting essential guidance for her going back to work. Duty towards children of incarcerated parents cannot be prejudiced. Methodology In the design of a research, methodology holds high importance in determining the tentative failure or success of the study. For this reason, the researcher should choose the methodology with care, as the wrong choice would lead the research to having an unproductive yield (Bernard, pp. 51-58, 2005). This is why the proposed research will consist majorly of secondary research methodology, which involves an empirical research of several scholarly sources like books, journals and websites, each of which holds a large amount of research and findings related to youth incarceration and its mental and physiological effect on these children and their parents. This is because several researchers have already attempted to explore and research the research statement of the proposed research, and thus their findings will be extremely beneficial to the purpose of this study, and will greatly help in achieving the aims and objectives stated above. The internet contains numerous journal articles as well as details of studies, which researchers have conducted on this topic, and will thus be significant sources of information. However, the research statement of these findings will not be the same as that of this proposed research, which is why the researcher will not confine this study to only secondary research, but also employ primary research (Babbie, pp. 23-25, 2000). This primary research will be conducted through questionnaires, which will be administered to students of _____ department. This way, the researcher will gain a more insightful understanding of the impact that youth incarceration has on not only the children and their family, but also the whole community. For this purpose, the research will seek subjects for the study who have ever experienced youth incarceration, as well as the families of these children, as this will help in studying the effect it has had on them. In addition, university students will be contributing greatly to the research, by providing a theoretical perspective of the research statement. This methodology indicates a balanced approach, which takes help from both primary and secondary research in order to conduct the most beneficial research possible. The process of secondary research will no doubt be the simpler of the two, as it will consist of only searching the findings of research, which previous researchers have already conducted and presented in books and journals. On the other hand, primary research will be costly, in terms of effort, time, as well as money. This is the main factor, which creates a large differentiation between the two methodologies. Each type will however be significant in contributing to the results of the study, making these findings a rich source of information for future researchers. Timeline # Task Name Date Date Date Date Date Date Date Date Date Date 1 Theoretical Framework 1st week 2 Compliance of Proposal 2nd week 3 Secondary Research 3-4th week 4 Analysis of Data 5-6th week 5 Primary Research 7-9th week 6 Distribution of Questionnaires 10th week 7 Collection of Questionnaires 12th week 8 Analysis 13-15th week 9 Rough Draft of Dissertation 16-18th week 10 Final Submission 19th week Conclusion In conclusion, the focus of the proposed research will be the numerous dimensions of youth incarceration, which have a negative effect on the children and their families, as well as the government who is responsible for controlling this problem. Thus, the researcher plans to locate and examine the findings of previous researchers on this topic, which will aid further studies also. In order to conduct this research in the most effective matter, the researchers will employ both primary and secondary research methodologies, in the pursuit of accurate and useful information on youth imprisonment and its effect on the immediate stakeholders. In addition, this study will include an analysis of the role of prison in the US community. The researcher wished to yield results, which will be beneficial to the learning of teachers, students, and well as professionals. References Harris, Y. R., Oliver, G. J. (2010). Children of Incarcerated Parents. Springer. Pattillo, M. (2006). Imprisoning America. Russell Sage Foundation. Wedge, P. (2002). Imprisoned Fathers and their Children. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Bernstein, N. (2007). All Alone in the World: Children of the Incarcerated. The New Press. Burges, S., Caselman, T. and Carsey, J. (2009). Empowering Children of Incarcerated Parents. YouthLight, Inc. Dixson-Haskett, J. (2010). L.O.R.T.E. (Levels of Response to Traumatic Events): A Vital Aid in Serving Children of Incarcerated Parents. iUniverse. Eddy, M. E., and Poehlmann, J. (2010). Children of Incarcerated Parents: A Handbook of Researchers and Practitioners. Urban Ins. Harris, Y. R., Graham, J. A., and Carpenter, G. J. (2010). Children of Incarcerated Parents: Theoretical Developmental and Clinical Issues. Springer Publishing Company. Lee, A. F., Gentry, P. M. and Laver, M. (2005). The Impact of the Adoption and Safe Families Act on Children of Incarcerated Parents. Martone, C. (2005). Loving Through Bars: Children with Parents in Prison. Santa Monica Press. Yaffe, R. M., and Hoade, L. F. (2000). When A Parent Goes To Jail: A Comprehensive Guide for Counseling Children of Incarcerated Parents. Rayve Productions. Read More