An Assessment of Prisoner Reentry, Legal Financial Obligations and Family Financial Support: A Focus on Fathers

Scholars have found that family support is an important facilitator of successful reentry from prison to the community. At the same time, they have argued that owing court-ordered fines or fees, also called legal financial obligations (LFOs), can act as an additional barrier to reentry, especially for parents. There remains a need to test how LFOs impact the financial support formerly incarcerated parents receive from their families. The current study responds to this gap by employing logistic regression analyses of the Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative (SVORI) data to test whether owing court fees is associated with formerly incarcerated fathers’ (1) perceptions of available financial support from family and (2) receipt of financial support from family. We find that owing court fees is not associated with perceptions of available financial support. However, owing court fees has a positive, statistically significant association with receiving financial support from family during the first three months after prison release. This relationship remains after accounting for whether the person owes child support or sees their children monthly. Our results suggest that LFOs may create a greater need for financial support among formerly incarcerated fathers, making the financial challenges of reentry a consequence not just for those who were incarcerated but for their loved ones as well.

The Value of Fathering for Incarcerated Offenders: Implementing the “Parents as Teachers” Curriculum in Greene County, Missouri

Research literature demonstrates the positive contributions of a nurturing father in the lives of young people as well as the reduction of recidivism for active fathers. The current study provides support for this model by highlighting the need for programming that enhances the relationship between incarcerated fathers and their children during their period of absence and while transitioning back into society and their family roles. The authors observed a parenting education program for incarcerated fathers twice weekly for a period of twelve weeks. The research noted three promising themes in the programming which could be expanded and implemented in other facilities. Fathers sought to improve their capacity to engage in “intentional conversations,” where they learned about modeling desirable behavior, being honest, and avoiding giving children mixed messages. Fathers also began the uncomfortable process of unpacking their own childhoods and overcoming poor parental models as they realized that “parenting makes a difference.” Through the program, fathers were encouraged to develop a “toolkit” of more positive parenting responsibilities and responses. Finally, fathers were introduced to the idea of “healthy relationships,” including creating strong boundaries and new types of relationship knowledge.

Dante, fatherhood, and starvation behind bars

This article documents the responses of incarcerated men to Dante’s story of Ugolino in canto 33 of Inferno. Reading Dante’s poem in prison theater workshops the men are inspired to write about the ways in which their own children, like Ugolino’s, have suffered because of the incarceration of their father. Interweaving fragments of Dante’s text into their stories the incarcerated readers generate narratives that explore the multiple meanings of starvation. While Ugolino’s children die starving for food, the children of incarcerated fathers are starving for love, family, and community. Like the majority of men in American prisons the participants in these Dante theater workshops are people of color and their writing highlights the impact of mass incarceration on black and brown communities in America at the same time that it demonstrates the continuing relevance of Dante’s poem to readers confronting issues related to justice and its absence in the twenty-first century.

“I have to be a man for my son”: The narrative uses of fatherhood in prison

Research on incarcerated fathers tends to accentuate the harmful familial consequences of parental incarceration and discuss how having children might prompt incarcerated fathers to desist from crime. Less attention has focused on how narratives of fatherhood shape the day-to-day dynamics of incarceration. Drawing on 93 qualitative interviews with incarcerated fathers in Western Canada, we focus specifically on our participants’ parenting narratives. Such narratives are significant interventions in the world, allowing incarcerated fathers to frame their identities in particular ways while simultaneously shaping personal behaviour. Our research, 1. Identifies important fatherhood narratives provided by our participants, and 2. Details how such narratives operate in prison, allowing our participants to advance personal agendas that are themselves related to the dynamics of incarceration. In doing so, we provide insights into incarcerated fathers’ situations and advance criminological efforts to appreciate how different actors entangled in the criminal justice system conceive, manage, and narrate their situation.