Children of Incarcerated Parents: Developmental Trajectories of Externalizing Behavior Across Adolescence

Background/Purpose: By 2011, U.S. had the highest rate of imprisonment in the world.  While the impact of this level of imprisonment on crime continues to be debated, the impact on the children of incarcerated parents is becoming increasingly clear. Most of the published findings point to problematic outcomes that can arise for these children especially in terms of externalizing behaviors, substance abuse, delinquency, and criminology.  

In the current study, we use latent growth mixture modeling to examine developmental trajectories of externalizing behaviors.  We then investigate how distinct trajectories are related to parental incarceration, key developmental factors, and adult substance use and criminality. Taking this more individualized and nuanced approach helps identify different patterns of emergence, continuance, and desistance of problems for children of incarcerated parents, as well as key points to intervene to boost healthy development.  

Methods: Data and sample: The data is from the Linking Interests of Families and Teachers (LIFT) longitudinal randomized controlled trial in which 672 students and their families from 12 local schools in Oregon were randomly chosen to participate.

Measures:Externalizing behaviors, parental incarceration, parent/child relationship, inconsistent/inappropriate discipline, parental depression, SES, academic achievement, trauma, substance use, delinquency, deviant peers, young adult arrest/incarceration.

Analytic approach: Latent growth mixture modeling was used to identify distinct trajectories of externalizing behavior for youth.  Relations of the identified trajectories with the variables of interest were then examined using one-way between groups ANOVA with planned comparisons and Chi-square tests.

Results: Four trajectory classes were identified: low-stable, mid-increasing, borderline-stable, and chronic-high.  Children of incarcerated parents were underrepresented in the low-stable trajectory and overrepresented in two of the three problematic trajectories. The trajectory classes differed significantly on many of the pre-adolescent measures as well as on delinquency, criminality, and substance use.  The three problematic trajectory classes showed significantly higher levels of early risk factors and problematic outcomes than the low-stable trajectory group. 

Conclusion/Implications: While as a group, children of incarcerated parents face many of the same risks and challenges, individually, they are exposed to a different array of factors at the individual, family, and community levels.  As such, their development varies.  Those children with strong parent-child relationships, consistent and appropriate parenting, healthy parental mental health, and low levels of trauma were more likely do well over time and were at lower risk for later substance use and criminality, while those who exhibited higher levels of parenting/family dysfunction were less likely to fare as well during the late adolescent and early adult years.  

With the number of issues at play for many children of incarcerated parents, it is clear that a “one-size-fits-all” approach to address the child and family needs is not appropriate.  Rather a tailored, multi-level approach which focuses on the children, family, and broader contextual issues might be best suited for this group. As a first step, practitioners need to be aware of the multiple strengths and challenges that can come into play for these children and families.