The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

Abstract #36260

Paul G. Shane, ScD, Social Work/Social Welfare, Rutgers University - Newark, 360 MLKing Jr Blvd, Newark, NJ 07102-1801, 973/353-5174, pshane@andromeda.rutgers.edu and Jeff Mellow, PhD, Criminal Justice, Bloomfield College, 467 Franklin St, Bllomfield, NJ 07003.

PRISONERS AND THEIR CHILDREN Over the past two decades the prison population in the United States has more than tripled. Similar statistics are found in New Jersey and in the Newark area. In New Jersey from 1980 to 1999 the rate of incarceration increased 514%. The United States now has the largest civilian prison system with the most prisoners in the world. The paper discusses issues relevant to the wide spread imprisonment of poor, primarily minority people and its effects upon their families and particularly their children. Within the family the most forgotten victims of incarceration are the children of prisoners. The very negative effects of parental imprisonment on children reach into every aspect of the children’s lives. Among other things, it helps a culture of imprisonment develop, it leaves children feeling abandoned and vulnerable, it puts extra burdens and stresses on the rest of the family, it effects children’s health, school and peer relationships negatively and other aspects of the children’s lives are negatively impacted. A project is being developed, in the Newark, NJ area, which will attempt to respond to many of the concerns expressed about the effects of imprisonment upon the health both mental and physical of populations not imprisoned, mainly the children and families of prisoners. LEARNING OBJECTIVES: 1) Public Health issues of large-scale imprisonment of poor and minority people as social policy. 2) Effect of imprisonment on children of prisoners, physical, mental and social. 3) Possible ways of counteracting the above.

Learning Objectives:

• 1) Public Health issues of large-scale imprisonment of poor and minority people as social policy.
• 2) Effect of imprisonment on children of prisoners, physical, mental and social.
• 3) Possible ways of counteracting the above.

Keywords: Children and Adolescents, Prison

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.