engleski

Children of imprisoned parents and family ties: What did scientific literatureadvocated during the last 10 years?

During last 15 years, significant number of scientific research dealing with parental incarceration have emerged. To find out more about scientific perspectives on children and families of incarcerated parents, the content analysis of 100 scientific articles dealing with incarcerated parents, published between 2008 and 2018 (English, German and French language) was conducted. The analysis showed scholars’ orientation towards psychopathology and research of predictive factors, i.e. orientation towards intergenerational transmission of antisocial behavior and incarceration later in life. These researches were mainly conducted by criminologists and psychiatrists. However, during last 5 years, several authors have shift focus from psychopathology towards the environmental and contextual factors contributing to quality of life of children of incarcerated parents. These researchers come from juvenile justice systems, most of them being social workers and developmental psychologists. So, at this point, literature concerning parental incarceration is situated in 2 opposite perspectives: (1) biological determinism and (2) contextual influence perspective. In the accordance of children’s rights and postmodern perspective, it would be more appropriate that science address contextual issues more often and with both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, so that tailored intervention can be implemented in various social contexts, including schools.

children's rights, incarcerated parents, stigma, well-being, suppor

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