Children exposed to the arrest of a family member: Associations with mental health

Witnessing Parental Arrest As a Predictor of Child Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms During and After Parental Incarceration

Purpose

One in fourteen children in the United States experiences the incarceration of a parent with whom they have lived. Although prior research has established that witnessing the arrest of a parent is a common occurrence for children of criminal justice-involved parents, child outcomes following such an event are understudied. Little is known about the long-term impacts of witnessing an arrest on children and the extent to which they may vary by child age.

Methods

Using longitudinal data from the Parent Child Study of mothers and fathers incarcerated in state prison, we examine the witnessing of parental arrest as an acute traumatic event and identify the extent to which this type of trauma predicts externalizing and internalizing symptoms for children during their parents' incarceration and following release.

Results

Witnessing a parent's arrest predicted greater internalizing behavior concerns while parents were incarcerated, with a greater magnitude of effect for children under eight years of age. Six months post-release of the parent, children younger than age eight who witnessed the arrest showed significantly higher internalizing and externalizing behaviors. No effect was found for children ages eight years or older.

Conclusion

Implications for future policies to reduce the likelihood of children witnessing parental arrests, as well as the potential benefit of screening for trauma when working with children with incarcerated parents, are discussed.

Interactions With Police in the Emergency Care of Children: Ethical and Legal Considerations

OBJECTIVES

Emergency medicine providers may interface with law enforcement personnel (LEP) on behalf of their pediatric patients for a variety of reasons, from reporting child abuse to caring for children who are in police custody. Given the unique nature of caring for minors who may not have legal or medical autonomy, interactions with LEP can raise ethical concerns for emergency providers, specifically with regard to legal representation, developmental immaturity, and the civil rights of children and their parents/guardians.

METHODS

We review 4 patient scenarios, based on real cases experienced by the authors, to demonstrate the legal and ethical issues that may arise when LEP are involved in the emergency care of a child. These scenarios discuss parental/guardian visitation for children in police custody in the emergency department (ED), the practice of making arrests on hospital grounds, and police interviews of children in the ED.

RESULTS

Using the ethical principles of autonomy, beneficence, and justice, we offer recommendations for emergency providers on how to advocate for their pediatric patients in LEP custody within the constraints and protections of the law. We also suggest best practices for hospital systems to develop policies surrounding LEP activity in the ED.

CONCLUSIONS

These nuanced situations require careful advocacy for the child and a collaborative approach between medical providers and LEP to balance the child's well-being with public safety. We offer recommendations here, and we maintain that clear, widely adopted best practices for the care of minors in LEP custody are long overdue.

Immigration Enforcement and Hispanic Youth Substance Use: Is Depression a Mediator?

Hispanic adolescents report earlier onset and higher substance use rates than their non-Hispanic White and Black peers. This study examines the associations between the immigration-related arrest of a family member and substance use among Hispanic early adolescents and explores the mediating role of depressive symptoms as the mechanism explaining the association. We apply a mediated multiple linear regression analysis on 661 Hispanic youth attending 7th grade in an urban school district in a south-central, new arrival state. We found that Hispanic early adolescents who experienced the immigration-related arrest of a family member reported significantly higher substance use than Hispanic youth who did not experience the arrest of a family member due to immigration enforcement. Moreover, we found this relationship to be fully mediated by depressive symptoms. Findings suggest that even though the majority of Hispanic youth in the U.S. are citizens, experiencing the immigration-related arrest of a family member is not uncommon and has critical implications for poor mental health and maladaptive coping behaviors.

Vicarious Exposure to the Criminal Legal System Among Parents and Siblings

Objective

This study documents life course patterns of vicarious exposure to the criminal legal system among parents and siblings in the United States.

Background

The criminal legal system shapes family outcomes in important ways. Still, life course patterns of vicarious exposure to the system-especially to lower-level contacts-among parents and siblings are not well documented.

Method

Using longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, Kaplan-Meier survival curves, and Cox regression models, we estimate cumulative risks of vicarious exposure to arrest, probation, and incarceration among parents (n=3,885 parents; 185,444 person-years) and siblings (n=1,875; 44,766 person-years) and examine disparities by race-ethnicity, gender, and education, and at their intersections.

Results

Vicarious exposure to the system is common-but highly unequal-among parents and siblings. Racially minoritized parents and siblings had greater levels and earlier risks of exposure. For example, by age 50, an estimated one in five Black parents experienced having a child incarcerated, a risk about twice as high as White and 50% higher than Latinx parents. By age 26, an estimated six in 10 Black young people with brothers experienced having a brother arrested; more than four in 10 experienced a brother on probation; and more than three in 10 experienced brother incarceration. For many estimates, racialized inequities in risks of vicarious system exposure widened at higher levels of education.

Conclusion

These findings provide essential context for understanding the role of the criminal legal system in maintaining and exacerbating family inequality.

From zero to thrive: A model of cross-system and cross-sector relational health to promote early childhood development across the child-serving ecosystem

Early relational health between caregivers and children is foundational for child health and well-being. Children and caregivers are also embedded within multiple systems and sectors, or a "child-serving ecosystem", that shapes child development. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has made this embeddedness abundantly clear, systems remain siloed and lack coordination. Fostering relational health amongst layers of this ecosystem may be a way to systematically support young children and families who are facing adversity. We integrate theory, examples, and empirical findings to develop a conceptual model informed by infant mental health and public health frameworks that illustrates how relational health across the child-serving ecosystem may promote child health and well-being at a population level. Our model articulates what relational health looks like across levels of this ecosystem from primary caregiver-child relationships, to secondary relationships between caregivers and child-serving systems, to tertiary relationships among systems that shape child outcomes directly and indirectly. We posit that positive relational health across levels is critical for promoting child health and well-being broadly. We provide examples of evidence-based approaches that address primary, secondary, and tertiary relational health, and suggest ways to promote relational health through cross-sector training and psychoeducation in the science of early development. This model conceptualizes relational health across the child-serving ecosystem and can serve as a template for promoting child health and well-being in the context of adversity.

Getting under the skin: Physiological stress and witnessing paternal arrest in young children with incarcerated fathers

U.S. jails see nearly 11 million annual admissions, rates that disproportionately affect men of color-more than half of whom are fathers. An estimated 7% of U.S. children experience the incarceration of a parent, increasing their risk for poor developmental and health outcomes. Although stress processes are often suggested as an underlying mechanism linking paternal incarceration to child well-being, few studies have examined such links. To study how witnessing a father's arrest prior to incarceration in jail relates to children's stress processes, we collected data on 123 individuals from 41 families with young children whose father was in jail, including collecting hair from 41 children, and analyzed their cumulative stress hormones, cortisol, and cortisone. Results indicate that children had higher cumulative stress hormone concentrations when they witnessed their father's arrest. Moreover, there was evidence of a blunted stress reaction in children who witnessed the arrest and who also had high levels of ongoing behavioral stress symptoms, similar to findings in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder studies. Long-term exposure to stress can have deleterious effects on children's brain development, further increasing risk for developmental psychopathology. Findings have implications for criminal justice approaches that safeguard children during parental arrest.

Immigration-related arrest, parental documentation status, and depressive symptoms among early adolescent Latinos

OBJECTIVES

Experiencing an immigration-related arrest of a family member adversely impacts youth well-being, yet the role of parental documentation status for exacerbating adverse mental health outcomes following these arrests has not been investigated.

METHOD

Using a general population sample of Latino 7th-grade students in an urban public school district in the south-central United States (N = 611), we examined the relationship between an immigration-related arrest of a family member and depressive symptoms as well as the moderating associations of perceived parental documentation status.

RESULTS

Using ordinary least squares regression, findings indicate that experiencing or witnessing an immigration-related arrest of a family member is significantly associated with higher rates of depressive symptoms. Moreover, parental citizenship status has a moderating effect; depressive symptoms are magnified among youth who report that both of their parents have undocumented legal status.

CONCLUSIONS

The study findings suggest that there are significant consequences for youth well-being when a family member is arrested for immigration-related violations. Further, among youth whose parents are both undocumented, there appears to be a compounding effect on mental health. Immigration policies, programs, and schools need to consider the emotional needs of youth who have undocumented parents, particularly in the context of elevated immigration enforcement. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Quantifying maternal incarceration: a whole-population linked data study of Western Australian children born 1985-2011

OBJECTIVE

To measure the prevalence of children affected by maternal incarceration in Western Australia (WA).

METHODS

Using linked administrative data we identified all children born in WA between 1985 and 2011, whose biological mother was imprisoned during their childhood. Data was obtained through the WA Data Linkage Branch from the Department of Corrective Services, Midwives Notifications System and Birth Registrations data collections. Descriptive characteristics of the children (n=9,352) and their mothers (n=3,827) are reported. Prevalence was measured in two-ways, the proportion of children ever affected in childhood and affected annually.

RESULTS

Childhood prevalence of maternal incarceration was 26-times higher (95%CI 23.9-28.2) for Indigenous children born 1992-1996 with 18.8% Indigenous children and 0.7% non-Indigenous children affected while aged 0-17 years. On average 1,544 children were affected each year across 2003-2011, at rates of 2,929 per 100,000 Indigenous children and 108 per 100,000 non-Indigenous children.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings present the first census of children affected by maternal incarceration within an Australian State and identify a large disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations. Implications for public health: This study highlights the importance of formal consideration of children of women prisoners in the development of criminal justice policies and practices.

Cumulative childhood risk and adult functioning in abused and neglected children grown up

This paper examines the relationship between childhood exposure to cumulative risk and three indicators of psychosocial adjustment in adulthood (educational attainment, mental health, and criminal behavior) and tests three different models (linear, quadratic, and interaction). Data were collected over several time points from individuals who were part of a prospective cohort design study that matched children with documented cases of abuse and/or neglect with children without such histories and followed them into adulthood. Hierarchical multiple regressions compared linear and quadratic models and then examined potential moderating effects of child abuse/neglect and gender. Exposure to a greater number of childhood risk factors was significantly related to fewer years of education, more anxiety and depression symptomatology, and more criminal arrests in adulthood. The relationship between cumulative risk and years of education demonstrated a curvilinear pattern, whereas the relationship between cumulative risk and both mental health and criminal arrests was linear. Child abuse/neglect did not moderate these relationships, although there were direct effects for both child abuse/neglect and gender on criminal arrests, with more arrests for abused/neglected individuals than controls and more for males than females. Gender interacted with cumulative risk to impact educational attainment and criminal behavior, suggesting that interventions may be more effective if tailored differently for males and females. Interventions may need to be multifaceted and designed to address these different domains of functioning.

Preventing aggression and other secondary features of dementia in elderly persons: Three case studies

Dementia and Alzheimer's disease are associated with behavioral symptoms that can be costly and troublesome to caregivers. Behavioral strategies to prevent aggression in people with dementia (PWDs) are necessary to decrease caregiver burden and relieve other behavioral disturbances in PWDs, such as depression. On the basis of their previous study that identified pain as a possible cause of aggression, the authors developed a behavioral in-home intervention designed to teach caregiver(s) how to recognize signs of pain and distress in PWDs. The authors present a description of the Preventing Aggression in Veterans with Dementia (PAVeD) intervention and illustrate its use and results with three case studies. Results indicate that this intervention may help prevent the development of aggression and pain in PWDs, reduce caregiver burden, and help manage other behavioral symptoms associated with dementia.

Children's experiences of maternal incarceration-specific risks: predictions to psychological maladaptation

Children of incarcerated mothers are at increased risk for social and emotional difficulties, yet few studies have investigated potential mechanisms of risk within this population. This research simultaneously examined the association of children's experience of incarceration-specific risk factors (e.g., witness mother's arrest) and environmental risks (e.g., low educational attainment) to children's psychological maladaptation using a multi-informant design and a latent variable analytic approach. Participants were 117 currently incarcerated mothers (64.1% African American), their 151 children (53.6% boys, M age = 9.8 years, range = 6-12 years, 61.7% African American), and the 118 caregivers (74.8% female, 61.9% grandparents, 62.2% African American) of the children. Mothers, children, and caregivers each provided accounts of children's experiences related to maternal incarceration and children's internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. Mothers and caregivers each supplied information about 10 environmental risk factors. Findings from structural equation modeling indicate that children's incarceration-specific risk experiences predict internalizing and externalizing behavior problems whereas the influence of environmental risks was negligible. Follow-up analyses examining the contribution of specific risks indicate that significant predictors differ by reporter and separate into effects of family incarceration history and direct experiences of maternal incarceration. Incarceration-specific experiences place children at higher risk for maladjustment than exposure to general environmental risk factors. These findings indicate the need to critically examine children's exposure to experiences related to maternal incarceration and family incarceration history to help to clarify the multifaceted stressor of maternal incarceration.