Parental Incarceration In Canada

Racial inequality inside of Canadian prisons is shocking and sometimes unbelievable when taken into account the percentage a minority group takes up in Canada’s overall population versus behind bars. The injustices against Canada’s First Nations people are unfortunately not just historic, as their mistreatment is still evident today. Despite representing only 3% of the population, First Nations account for about 25% of the prison population in provincial/territorial facilities. More specifically, 31% of the female population, and 22% of the male population were First Nations in 2015. More than one in five admissions to men’s prisons are of Aboriginal descent, and one in three in women’s prisons. Although it can be said that more and more attention has been drawn to this issue by citizens and politicians alike recently, First Nations people continue to suffer from poverty, injustice, and a lack of opportunities compared to the average Canadian citizen. About one in four native children live in poverty, leading to criminal activity, and eventually

Being the child of an incarcerated parent has substantial amounts of negative influences on youth today. As young children, many consider their parents as role models. Someone who they can confide in, someone who will preserve them, and someone who will guide them through life. For most youngsters having an incarcerated parent, means that their admirable example in life is absent. Not having a parent present in one's childhood leads to innumerable negative outcomes and impacts.

Today prisons are overcrowded and over two million Americans, male, and female are sitting in jail or prison, and two thirds of those people incarcerated are parents (U.S. Department of Justice). Approximately two million of these children are separated from their mom or dad because of incarceration of which these are the custodial parent. These children suffer from poverty, inconsistency in caregivers, separation from siblings, reduced education, increased risk for substance abuse, alcoholism and incarceration themselves.

When someone is incarcerated it not only affects them but it takes a toll on their family. For example, men who are incarcerated and leave children behind. This affects the household and its finances. This is due to the fact that in some households men are the primary breadwinner. Children of women who are incarcerated sometimes end up homeless or in foster homes. This has a negative effect on the children because they lack the guidance and basic fundamentals a parent provides. Children who have a parent in jail are emotionally affected because there's no balance within their life, especially if their parent is always in an out of jail. Some kids start doing poorly in school, acting out and sometimes get involved in criminal

In recent years the issue of mass incarceration in the United States and Canada has begun to take a spotlight in the media, government and public discourse. This paper will examine how Canada incarcerates Aboriginals at much higher rates than those who are not of Aboriginal descent. By examining the culture clash between Aboriginals and the rest of the population and the socio-economic conditions they live in, this paper will show that the criminal justice system works against them, therefore leading to mass incarceration. Finally, this paper will make suggestions as to how the criminal justice system can change in order to reduce the incarceration rates of Aboriginal peoples.

Many of these incarcerated men and women play various roles in their communities. They are parents, siblings, sons, and daughters and have family members who depend upon them for social and economic support. The incarceration of a parent has a particularly destabilizing role in a child’s life, oftentimes leaving the child in the care of a single parent, relative, or foster home (Levy-Pounds, 2006). Parental incarceration is considered an Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE), a designation for certain

In today’s media, countries such as the United States are portrayed as having corrupt legal systems which are responsible for mass incarceration. However, many do not know this is also a problem in Canada. New bills have recently been put in place to incarcerate more people for non-violent crimes. The poor are being kept off the streets by being sent to prison. Different races make up a small population in Canada, but a large population in its prison system.

Rose Ricciardelli has written a book entitled Surviving Incarceration, which explores and reveals the various dynamics inside Canadian prisons. Essentially, it is a research done by the author, who incorporates a male sub-sample of Canadian federal prisons, while collecting data via 1-on-1 interviews with these inmates. Ricciardelli states early in the book that she will be focusing on prisoners and their experiences with federal prison; not on discussing why prisons exist or whether they are punitive or rehabilitative. Thus, although the title is misleading since Ricciardelli does not actually write about ‘surviving prison,’ she makes it clear early on for what readers can expect. Also, the author will look at the effectiveness of policy and legislation changes. With this in mind, one can assume that the title was simply for marketing purposes. Additionally, although Ricciardelli has set the focus on the Canadian prison system, she does not disclose further information or a history in this regard. For instance, throughout the readings, Ricciardelli does not provide statistics that would be curious to know in the minds of readers. This can include the statistical difference between federal and

The author attempts to glide over the emotional health and well being and the extent to which the child will be affected by parental incarceration. Most children with incarcerated parents experiance a broad range of emotions, including fear, anxiety, anger, sadness,loneliness, and guilt (The Osborne Association 1993). They may also act out inapproperiately, become disruptive in the classroom or engage in other anti sociol behaviors. Often, their academic performance deteriorates and they develop other school related difficulties. The emotional and behavioral difficulties have been linked to a variety of factors, including parent child seperation and social stigma which the author fails to discuss. The book did not contributed to my understanding of the scope of the problem of parental incarceration and the effects on the children. However reviewing existing literature, though scarce re interated my hypothesis that children of incarcerated parents experience a variety of negative consequences. Nature of the parents, crime, length of sentence, availability of family support or all important factors to be considered affecting these children.

Mass incarceration has been a huge social problem since the 1980s; it came hand in hand with the war on drugs. Elliott Currie, a professor of criminology and law, suggests that building more prisons, imposing longer sentences, and applying harsh punishments will not lower the incarceration rate. In his chapter on “Assessing the Prison Experiment,” he explained that the increase of crime rate is not the sole reason that mass incarceration occurs, and it was also because courts

There are more that 2 million men and women incarcerated in U.S. prisons and the majority of them are parents of children under the age of 18. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, parents in prison had approximately 2.6 million children at the time they were admitted to prison and of those children, approximately 1 million will reach the age of 18 at the time of the inmates expected release (Petit 2012. Previous research has shown that these children have been shown to underperform academically (Foster and Hagan 2009), have a higher risk of

Researchers have begun to measure not only how incarceration influences parents, but the effects the consequences of parental incarceration on children. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1.5 million minors deal with parental incarceration every year (Harrison & Beck, 2010). In addition, as jail and prison residents continue to increase, the number of children affected by parental incarceration will also continue to increase. Therefore, researchers have taken a certain interest in studying the short and long term consequences of parental incarceration on children. Investigators show that children of incarcerated parents are up to ten times more likely to be incarcerated during their generation than children of non-incarcerated parents (Johnson, 2010).

The International Journal of Psychology and Educational Studies article titled, “Incarcerated Mothers and Fathers: How their Absences Disrupt Children’s High School Graduation” by Huynh-Hohnbaum, Bussell, and Lee (2015) details a great deal of research on how parental incarceration affects the children in regards to education. Lately, along with the entire justice system, parental incarceration has also been scrutinized for its effects on the children of incarcerated parents and how well they do in school as well as the other effects an incarcerated parent has on other aspects of a child’s life. Huynh-Hohnbaum, Bussell and Lee (2015) point out that having an incarcerated mother seems to have a greater effect on a child, but having either parent

While all those Canadians who live beneath the poverty line are by no means associated with criminal activity, almost all those in Canada’s prisons come from beneath the poverty line. Less than 10 per cent of Canadians live beneath the poverty line but almost 100 per cent of our prison inmates come from that 10 per cent. There is no political ideology, on the right or left, that would make the case that people living in poverty belong in jail. (Segal 1)

The cost of incarceration in Canada is a large portion of 2 billion dollars per year (Griffiths 77). In Mother Jones magazine (July 2001) it says that since 1980, the money spending on prisons has grown six times faster than what has been spent on higher education. That is just two of the many facts about the cost of incarceration, but incarceration is not only about the offenders, it is also about the hiring of the 1000 new correctional officers announced in April 1998. The ratio of officers to prisoners in Canadian prisons has increased by 43 per every 100, making the cost go higher. The annual cost of supervising a convict on parole is 19 755 dollars per year (CSC, 2005). Putting America together, the country spent over 100 million dollars a day to jail individuals with serious drug and alcohol problems, plus 30 billion taxpayer dollars spent on incarcerate. These numbers never decrease, they only increase. In the year of 2000, United States alone used a drug-control budget that reached 18.4 billion dollars (Newsweek 2001 37-43). A new release of Obama Administration’s has requested 15.5 billion dollars for federal drug control (PRWEB April 2011). This was a high amount of money spent on controlling drug problems and incarceration. Instead of using all this money on the idea of imprisonment, they should use it on something that cost less and works more effectively; drug courts