Fathering behind Bars: Understanding the Needs and Expectations of Incarcerated Fathers to Enhance Family Strengthening Services in the Criminal Justice System in Hong Kong

Background:

Parental involvement in the Criminal Justice System (CJS) has brought unprecedented hardships to both incarcerated parents and their families. Incarcerated parents face unique challenges in maintaining relationships with their children and performing their parenting role while in prison. Research has highlighted the need for family strengthening services that offer support for incarcerated parents in maintaining parent-child relationships and developing parenting skills. Yet, minimal research has explored the specific needs and perspectives of incarcerated fathers in the Chinese Hong Kong context. Our study sought to delve deeper into this issue by identifying the specific expectations and needs that incarcerated fathers have for family strengthening services in the justice system. The implications of our findings contribute to the future development of effective family strengthening services and policies in facilitating rehabilitation under the current justice system.

Methods:

Fourteen convicted and/or remanded incarcerated fathers in custody and four experienced social workers who received parent education training were recruited. From a narrative intervention approach, content of 382 letters and 124 posted learning materials from a remotely delivered, 12-session Prison-based Distant Parent Course were gathered, reviewed and coded. The codes generated from the data were categorised under four overreaching themes, namely, “Parent Education and Advice Channel”; “Distant Prison-based Counselling Services”; “A Bridge to Connect with Outside Family”; and “A Platform to Communicate Family Support Services”. The themes were reviewed and discussed by the wider team until consensus was reached. Procedures of data analysis followed Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six-step framework for thematic analysis.

Findings:

Our findings speak to the unique challenges and needs of incarcerated fathers. Incarcerated fathers’ expectations for the Distant Parent Course fell under four themes. Our findings indicate that the incarcerated fathers prioritise parent education and seek parenting-related advices from the services, which equip them with necessary parenting skills and knowledge to maintain and enhance their father-child relationships. They also identify access to distant prison-based counselling services as crucial to their mental well-being. Additionally, incarcerated fathers express strong desire for family strengthening services that would help them connect with their children and families outside of prison. Our findings further underscore the need for incarcerated fathers to communicate their needs for family support, emphasising the significance of providing a suitable platform to do so.

Implications:

The findings highlight the importance of providing family strengthening services that cater to the specific needs of incarcerated fathers, which encourage later adaptive family reintegration upon release. Effective interventions should focus on parent education, counselling services, and maintaining relationships with family members, especially parent-child relationships. These findings underscore the need for more nuanced and comprehensive policies and services on the wider family-level to benefit those affected by parental incarceration. This study informs the development of innovative remote service delivery models that support incarcerated parents in restoring functional and adaptive parenthood after discharge. We recommend that the narrative intervention approach be recommended as a novel direction for social work rehabilitation programs for incarcerated parents and lay a positive foundation for healthy and adaptive family life after discharge.