Please Remember Me: Unintended Consequences Affecting Children of the Incarcerated

Abstract

This article explores the ways in which one local church community responded to the devastating effects of parental incarceration. In their efforts to "reverse the jail trail", New Canaan International Church in Richmond, Virginia established a non-profit agency, New Jubilee to promote resilience in children and families from "at risk environments." Initiatives include a partnership with the Virginia Department of Corrections to offer video visitation to inmates and families. In addition, a mentor program is available for children between the ages of 4-18 who have a parent incarcerated in a state or federal institution. The public is often misinformed about the nature and extent of crime. Media accounts tend to exacerbate this problem and fuel the public's already misinformed opinions, while politicians capitalize on the public's frequent demands that "something be done about crime." Unfortunately, this "get tough" approach, primarily begun in the 1980's, appears to have produced unintended consequences for the children of the incarcerated in an effort to satisfy the public's demand for safer communities. Upon examination of the exploding prison population, it certainly seems that something has indeed been done - offenders have been increasingly sentenced to prison. According to the Sentencing Project, a national organization which promotes reform in sentencing, there has been a 500 percent increase in the number of prison sentences over the past thirty years. Meanwhile, interestingly enough, criminologists claim that crime at its lowest point in thirty years (1). After providing a brief review of the impact that incarceration has on children, our primary focus is to highlight the needs, resilience and coping mechanisms of these children. We provide illustrative examples of two community-based programs where the Virginia Department of Corrections and a local church in Richmond, Virginia serve the community by responding to families of the incarcerated. In general, governmental policies produce unintended consequences, both positive and negative. In his paper published in 1936 titled "The Unintended Consequences of Purposive Social Action," the prominent sociologist, Robert K. Merton, analyzed unintended consequences, positing that they are unanticipated outcomes of social action. Merton (1936) popularizes the phrase "unintended consequences" and further describes a variety of sources for them, such as ignorance, error, immediate interest, basic values, and self-