| Parental Incarceration is on the rise. According to the U.S. Department of Justice (1992), a quarter of a million children are separated from their parents each year as a result of parental incarceration. An estimated 59% of women in federal prisons have young children, 65% of women in state prisons have young children, 70% of women held in local jails have young children, and 72% of women on probation have young children (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1999).Consequently, as astonishing as the statistics of incarcerated mothers may appear, men serving time in federal prison are reported to have 15 times the number of minor children as reported by women in federal prison. While, men in state prisons are reported to have nearly 11 times as many minor children as women serving time in state prisons.The fact that such a large number of parents are being incarcerated implies that there is a neglected class of young children whose lives are disrupted as well as damaged by their separation from imprisoned mothers and fathers (Bloom, 1993). For this dissertation project, I wrote and produced a children's fiction book. The book is entitled "When A Parent goes to Prison" and its purpose is to help children understand and deal with the incarceration of their parent(s).As part of the feedback process, I sent an initial draft (without illustrations) of the book to several consultants consisting of psychologists, parents, and educators. Therefore, I incorporated many of their suggestions and utilized much of their feedback in creating the final draft of the book. The book, "When A Parent goes to Prison" has two main objectives identified in the structure of this children's book. The primary objective was to better prepare children for prolonged separation from a parent and facilitate conversation around this process. A children's book was chosen for its ability to provide a positive means of communicating difficult information to children. Another objective of the children's book was to provide an opportunity for the caretaker (those parents at home as well as those parents incarcerated) to spend some quality time with the child(ren). |
