Joseph Murray

Children's antisocial behavior, mental health, drug use, and educational performance after parental incarceration: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Unprecedented numbers of children experience parental incarceration worldwide. Families and children of prisoners can experience multiple difficulties after parental incarceration, including traumatic separation, loneliness, stigma, confused explanations to children, unstable childcare arrangements, strained parenting, reduced income, and home, school, and neighborhood moves. Children of incarcerated parents often have multiple, stressful life events before parental incarceration. Theoretically, children with incarcerated parents may be at risk for a range of adverse behavioral outcomes. A systematic review was conducted to synthesize empirical evidence on associations between parental incarceration and childrens later antisocial behavior, mental health problems, drug use, and educational performance. Results from 40 studies (including 7,374 children with incarcerated parents and 37,325 comparison children in 50 samples) were pooled in a meta-analysis. The most rigorous studies showed that parental incarceration is associated with higher risk for childrens antisocial behavior, but not for mental health problems, drug use, or poor educational performance. Studies that controlled for parental criminality or childrens antisocial behavior before parental incarceration had a pooled effect size of OR = 1.4 (p < .01), corresponding to about 10% increased risk for antisocial behavior among children with incarcerated parents, compared with peers. Effect sizes did not decrease with number of covariates controlled. However, the methodological quality of many studies was poor. More rigorous tests of the causal effects of parental incarceration are needed, using randomized designs and prospective longitudinal studies. Criminal justice reforms and national support systems might be needed to prevent harmful consequences of parental incarceration for children.

Outcomes of conduct problems in adolescence: 40 year follow-up of national cohort

Objective To describe long term outcomes associated with externalising behaviour in adolescence, defined in this study as conduct problems reported by a teacher, in a population based sample. Design Longitudinal study from age 13-53. Setting The Medical Research Council National Survey of Health and Development (the British 1946 birth cohort). Participants 3652 survey members assessed by their teachers for symptoms of externalising behaviour at age 13 and 15. Main outcome measures Mental disorder, alcohol abuse, relationship difficulties, highest level of education, social class, unemployment, and financial difficulties at ages 36-53. Results 348 adolescents were identified with severe externalising behaviour, 1051 with mild externalising behaviour, and 2253 with no externalising behaviour. All negative outcomes measured in adulthood were more common in those with severe or mild externalising behaviour in adolescence, as rated by teachers, compared with those with no externalising behaviour. Adolescents with severe externalising behaviour were more likely to leave school without any qualifications (65.2%; adjusted odds ratio 4.0, 95% confidence interval 2.9 to 5.5), as were those with mild externalising behaviour (52.2%; 2.3, 1.9 to 2.8), compared with those with no externalising behaviour (30.8%). On a composite measure of global adversity throughout adulthood that included mental health, family life and relationships, and educational and economic problems, those with severe externalising behaviour scored significantly higher (40.1% in top quarter), as did those with mild externalising behaviour (28.3%), compared with those with no externalising behaviour (17.0%). Conclusions Adolescents who exhibit externalising behaviour experience multiple social and health impairments that adversely affect them, their families, and society throughout adult life.

Risk Factors for Conduct Disorder and Delinquency: Key Findings from Longitudinal Studies:

Conduct disorder (CD) and delinquency are behavioural problems involving violation of major rules, societal norms, and laws. The prevalence of CD and delinquency peaks in mid-to-late adolescence. Both show considerable continuity over time. The most important studies of CD and delinquency have prospective longitudinal designs, large community samples, repeated personal interviews, measures of many possible risk factors, and both self-reports and official measures of antisocial behaviour. The most important risk factors that predict CD and delinquency include impulsiveness, low IQ and low school achievement, poor parental supervision, punitive or erratic parental discipline, cold parental attitude, child physical abuse, parental conflict, disrupted families, antisocial parents, large family size, low family income, antisocial peers, high delinquency rate schools, and high crime neighbourhoods. However, for many risk factors, it is not known whether they have causal effects. Future research should examine changes in risk factors and changes in CD and delinquency to identify the risk factors that are causes and those that are merely markers of other risk mechanisms.

The Effects of Parental Imprisonment on Children

The number of children experiencing parental imprisonment is increasing in Western industrialized countries. Parental imprisonment is a risk factor for child antisocial behavior, offending, mental health problems, drug abuse, school failure, and unemployment. However, very little is known about whether parental imprisonment causes these problems. Parental imprisonment might cause adverse child outcomes because of the trauma of parent‐child separation, stigma, or social and economic strain. Children may have worse reactions to parental imprisonment if their mother is imprisoned or if parents are imprisoned for longer periods of time or in more punitive social contexts. Children should be protected from harmful effects of parental imprisonment by using family‐friendly prison practices, financial assistance, parenting programs, and sentences that are less stigmatizing for offenders and their families.

Crime in Adult Offspring of Prisoners A Cross-National Comparison of Two Longitudinal Samples

Studies from several countries suggest that parental criminality is a strong predictor of children’s own criminal behavior. Recently, the authors found that parental incarceration predicted boys’ delinquency in an English cohort, even after controlling for parental criminality and other childhood risks. The present study uses data from Project Metropolitan (Sweden) on 15,117 children born in the same year as the English cohort (1953) to test whether results in England were replicated in Sweden. In Sweden, parental incarceration predicted children’s own criminal behavior, but unlike in England, the effects of parental incarceration disappeared after statistically controlling for the criminality of the parent. This cross-national difference may have been the result of shorter prison sentences in Sweden, more family friendly prison policies, a welfare-oriented juvenile justice system, an extended social welfare system, and more sympathetic public attitudes toward crime and punishment.

Family factors in the intergenerational transmission of offending

BACKGROUND Convicted parents tend to have convicted children, but there have been few previous studies of transmission between three generations, especially including both records and interviews for hundreds of people. METHOD In the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (CSDD), 411 south London males have been followed up from age 8 to age 48. These males (generation 2, G2) are compared with their fathers and mothers (generation 1, G1), and with their biological sons and daughters (generation 3, G3). RESULTS There was significant intergenerational transmission of convictions from G1 males to G2 males, and from G2 males to G3 males. Convictions of fathers still predicted convictions of sons after controlling for risk factors, but the predictive efficiency was reduced. Transmission was less from G1 females to G2 males, and from G2 males to G3 females. There was little evidence of intergenerational transmission from G1 to G3, except from grandmothers to granddaughters. CONCLUSIONS The intergenerational transmission of offending may be mediated by family, socio-economic and individual risk factors. Intervention to reduce intergenerational transmission could target these risk factors.

The Cycle of Punishment: Social Exclusion of Prisoners and Their Children

Recent research suggests that children of prisoners are at risk for a range of adverse outcomes throughout their lives. However, there is almost no information about how many children prisoners have, where their children are or who looks after them. This article describes childrens circumstances following their fathers imprisonment, using a survey at an English prison. It is roughly estimated that 1 per cent of children under 18 experience parental imprisonment each year in England and Wales. It is argued that prisoners and their children are vulnerable to multiple types of social exclusion, including: pre-existing deprivation; loss of material and social capital following imprisonment; stigma; ‘linguistic exclusion’; political exclusion; poor future prospects; and administrative invisibility. Despite the apparent prevalence and urgency of the problem, the population of children of prisoners is unmonitored, under-researched and unsupported by the statutory sector. In the UK, failure to support children of prisoners reflects an era of punitive penal policy, and a lack of commitment to reduce social exclusion by the Government.

Very early predictors of conduct problems and crime: results from a national cohort study

BACKGROUND   Longitudinal research has produced a wealth of knowledge about individual, family, and social predictors of crime. However, nearly all studies have started after children are age 5, and little is known about earlier risk factors. METHODS The 1970 British Cohort Study is a prospective population survey of more than 16,000 children born in 1970. Pregnancy, birth, child, parent, and socioeconomic characteristics were measured from medical records, parent interviews, and child assessments at birth and age 5. Conduct problems were reported by parents at age 10, and criminal convictions were self-reported by study members at ages 30-34. RESULTS   Early (up to age 5) psychosocial risk factors were strong predictors of conduct problems and criminal conviction. Among pregnancy and birth measures, only prenatal maternal smoking was strongly predictive. Risk factors were similar for girls and boys. Additive risk scores predicted antisocial behaviour quite strongly. CONCLUSIONS   Risk factors from pregnancy to age 5 are quite strong predictors of conduct problems and crime. New risk assessment tools could be developed to identify young children at high risk for later antisocial behaviour.

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Trajectories From Childhood to Young Adulthood: Evidence From a Birth Cohort Supporting a Late-Onset Syndrome.

IMPORTANCE The requirement of a childhood onset has always been a key criterion for the diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in adults, but recently this requirement has become surrounded by controversy. OBJECTIVE To investigate whether impaired young adults with ADHD symptoms always have a childhood-onset disorder in a population-based longitudinal study. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Participants belonged to the 1993 Pelotas Birth Cohort Study, including 5249 individuals born in Pelotas, Brazil, in 1993. They were followed up to 18 to 19 years of age, with 81.3% retention. The data analysis was performed between August 8, 2015, and February 5, 2016. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The ADHD status was first ascertained at 11 years of age using a screening instrument (hyperactivity subscale of the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire) calibrated for a DSM-IV ADHD diagnosis based on clinical interviews with parents using the Development and Well-Being Assessment. At 18 to 19 years of age, ADHD diagnosis was derived using DSM-5 criteria, except age at onset. We estimated the overlap between these groups assessed at 11 and 18 to 19 years of age and the rates of markers of impairment in these 2 groups compared with those without ADHD. RESULTS At 11 years of age, childhood ADHD (C-ADHD) was present in 393 individuals (8.9%). At 18 to 19 years of age, 492 individuals (12.2%) fulfilled all DSM-5 criteria for young adult ADHD (YA-ADHD), except age at onset. After comorbidities were excluded, the prevalence of YA-ADHD without comorbidities decreased to 256 individuals (6.3%). Children with C-ADHD had a male preponderance not observed among children without ADHD (251 [63.9%] vs 1930 [47.9%] male, P < .001), whereas the YA-ADHD group had a female preponderance (192 [39.0%] vs 1786 [50.4%] male, P < .001). Both groups had increased levels of impairment in adulthood, as measured by traffic incidents, criminal behavior, incarceration, suicide attempts, and comorbidities. However, only 60 children (17.2%) with ADHD continued to have ADHD as young adults, and only 60 young adults (12.6%) with ADHD had the disorder in childhood. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE The findings of this study do not support the assumption that adulthood ADHD is necessarily a continuation of childhood ADHD. Rather, they suggest the existence of 2 syndromes that have distinct developmental trajectories.

Parental incarceration, attachment and child psychopathology

Theory and evidence relating parental incarceration, attachment, and psychopathology are reviewed. Parental incarceration is a strong risk factor for long-lasting psychopathology, including antisocial and internalizing outcomes. Parental incarceration might threaten childrens attachment security because of parent–child separation, confusing communication about parental absence, restricted contact with incarcerated parents, and unstable caregiving arrangements. Parental incarceration can also cause economic strain, reduced supervision, stigma, home and school moves, and other negative life events for children. Thus, there are multiple possible mechanisms whereby parental incarceration might increase risk for child psychopathology. Maternal incarceration tends to cause more disruption for children than paternal incarceration and may lead to greater risk for insecure attachment and psychopathology. Childrens prior attachment relations and other life experiences are likely to be of great importance for understanding childrens reactions to parental incarceration. Several hypotheses are presented about how prior insecure attachment and social adversity might interact with parental incarceration and contribute to psychopathology. Carefully designed longitudinal studies, randomized controlled trials, and cross-national comparative research are required to test these hypotheses.