COMMENTARY: Toward Averting the Next Crime Wave: Helping the Children of Inmates

c. 2000 Religion News Service (Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J., and a fellow of the George H. Gallup International Institute in Princeton, N.J.) (UNDATED) “What’s going to happen to some of […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

(Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J., and a fellow of the George H. Gallup International Institute in Princeton, N.J.)

(UNDATED) “What’s going to happen to some of (your) kids if they aren’t given proper direction?” asked Judge Duncan M. Beagle, as he was about to pass sentence on Dedric Owens for first-degree home invasion.


“They’ll end up just like me,” Owens answered. Four years later, Owens’ 6-year-old son shot and killed a first-grade classmate, 6-year-old Kayla Rolland.

The tragic death of little Kayla and the circumstances surrounding it represent an all-too-common scenario associated with the children of prison inmates.

According to noted criminologist, John J. DiIulio, “No single group of American toddlers and teens is more at risk of abuse and neglect, educational failure, illiteracy, chronic joblessness, welfare dependency, drug or alcohol addiction, out-of-wedlock births, crime and delinquency, incarceration and premature death” than the children of incarcerated adults. “Yet,” he continues, “no single group of America’s youth goes more unseen, unheard and unhelped.”

These children, which total nearly 2 million nationally, represent the seamier side of the nation’s approach to criminal justice: That is, in our haste to lock up criminal offenders, we either ignore or forget the children and families they leave behind.

Moreover, as a result of policies that limit parole eligibility, eliminate parole entirely for some offenses and lower the age at which youthful offenders can be tried as adults, there is an increasing likelihood that children _ particularly boys _ will join their fathers behind bars before their fathers can rejoin them on the streets. Nowhere is this more true than among the offspring of inner-city black inmates, whom DiIulio describes as “the most severely at-risk youth in America.”

Against this backdrop, DiIulio has argued for a nationwide, faith-based initiative addressing the needs of what Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush has called America’s “forgotten children.” This initiative, which would harness the outreach capabilities of urban black churches and other congregations, would link religiously committed adults with the children of inmates in an effort to provide them with mentoring, literacy training and other services.

Another aspect of this issue is best seen through the eyes of the inmates themselves. For many prisoners, the guilt associated with their incarceration is tremendous. Not only must they come to terms with the facts and factors connected with their crimes, they must also wrestle with the costs of imprisonment _ both to themselves and their families.


Among the frustrations felt most keenly is the inability to guide and direct the lives of their children. Their gravest fears are reflected in Dedrick Owens’ plaintive admission: “They’ll end up just like me.”

Worse yet, many would not know how to be fathers to their children if they were given the chance. Why? Because they were never taught. Most had little or no relationship with their fathers, and thus don’t know how to be good fathers themselves.

For example, according to the most conservative estimates, fewer than 35 percent of African-American children live with their fathers. This, at a time when, as E. Bernard Franklin, of the National Center on Fathering, writes, “There are more African-American men in prison than there are on American college campuses.” And, according to the American Council on Education, the number of African-American men graduating from college has declined steadily since 1976.

Thus, less than two generations after Daniel Patrick Moynihan angered black intellectuals with his dire predictions for “the matriarchal black family,” he has been proven prophetic.

Nevertheless, even allowing for the “tough-on-crime” sentencing policies of the criminal justice system, most incarcerated fathers will eventually return to the streets. The question is under what conditions will they return?

Will they be equipped with the life skills (including parenting skills) necessary to take responsibility for their obligations? Or will they be like Dedrick Owens, who has fathered six children by four women, and whose history of criminal and drug involvement is a conservative spinmeister’s dream?


The answer, I submit, depends on whether the kind of support DiIulio champions is available. The truth is, the needs of both inmates and their children desperately require a holistic approach.

Furthermore, the time to take such action is now.

(OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS)

DiIulio, for example, cites a study indicating that church-based interventions in the lives of at-risk youth can greatly reduce the incidence of youth violence. Moreover, in a 1997 study linking religious activity among inmates with their adjustment to society following release from prison, the National Institute for Healthcare Research found that the greater an inmate’s religious commitment, the more likely he was to make a positive reentry into society.

Separate studies have shown faith-based initiatives can bear fruit in the lives of inmates and their children. A commonsense approach would be to bring the two together.

DEA END ATCHISON

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