More evidence against increasing incarcerations

In the past, I have written about child protection issues that arise from a parent being incarcerated. These problems include fracturing family functioning, increasing the economic and social burden on the family and resulting in stresses that can then lead to neglect and other forms of maltreatment. Certainly, a case can be made that the needs of society may over ride those concerns, particularly with violent and repeat offenders. Thus, a new study by the PEW Centre on the States offers some fresh and articulate focus on the possible costs and benefits of incarceration.

The study, titled, Time Served, The high costs, low return of longer prison sentences, concludes that for a substantial number of offenders, "there is little or no evidence that keeping them locked up longer prevents additional crime" (p.4). That is a fairly significant conclusion particularly given the very high costs associated with incarceration. They also note that the public has become less focused on punishment and more focused on cost effectiveness and the use of tools to reduce recidivism. Good risk assessment can determine who is best for release and supervision.

The impact for families is not really measured in this work. But one also has to wonder what impact that children might have by a parent whose involvement with the criminal justice system is more focused on helping the parent address mental health or addiction issues. What lessons are there for the child? A society that supports positive change or one that is focused on punishment.

Consider that between 1990 and 2010, the US prison population grew by 109% at an average cost of around $24,000 per prisoner. They estimate that the extra time served without benefit is costing the US about $10 billion.

The argument is not about the violent offender who is likely to repeat his/her crime. It is about carefully determining who belongs in prison because reform will be unlikely to succeed. The report separates that there is a large amount of crime that is related to addictions, mental health and poverty. Treat the problem and your reduce the probability of further crime.

They also identify that work done to prepare the lower risk offender for reintegration into the community will positively impact the recidivism rate. Inmates who are poorly prepared for release struggle with integration and are then at higher risk to reoffend.  Creating a link to a rehabilitative approach seems to be socially desirable but also appears to have strong positive impacts on the costs of managing the criminal justice system. In times of high economic stress in countries, finding ways to reduce prison populations will reduce government expenditures. What this research tells us is that can be done without increasing risk to communities.

The report is available on the web through the PEW website.

Drug Courts can be quite effective fir child protection

Some lovely new research by Bruns et al. has shown that drug courts can be quite effective in working with substance abusing parents in the child protection system. This matters. As they point out, substance abuse is one of the most significant issues in child protection. They note prior research showing that it is related to higher involvement in foster care; longer duration in care and poorer reunification rates. In addition, they highlight that it can often take many months before parents are connected to needed treatment resources

Drug Treatment Courts have a solid history of working within the criminal court system in various jurisdictions.

The aim of most drug courts is to use the court process to facilitate a coordinated, team-based, and inter- disciplinary approach to treat individuals who have been charged with an offense related to their addiction or substance involvement (p.2).

Family Drug Treatment Courts aim to increase reunification, family safety as well as parental abstinence. To my knowledge, they are not yet common within the child protection system, so this review may well assist in raising such an approach as an important tool for child protection systems.

A study of four FTDCs in sites across the United States found that participants enrolled in treatment more quickly, received treat- ment services for a longer mean duration, and were more likely to complete treatment successfully than parents in regular dependency courts. (p.3).

However, the published research data base remains small and is not been subject to the kind of disciplined review that might give long term confidence. The present study helps to fill the gap and shows positive results including entering treatment faster, completing and having better child protection outcomes. The children were more frequently returned to parental care.

This promising research adds to the idea that structured, comprehensive substance abuse interventions that include the courts can substantially improve outcomes. This might be an approach that is worth considering in more jurisdictions.

Reference:

Bruns, E.J.,, Pullmann, M.D., Weathers, E.S., Wirschem, M.L. &. Murphy, J.K. (2012). Effects of a multidisciplinary family treatment drug court on child and family outcomes: Results of a quasi-experimental study. Child Maltreatment, In Press. doi: 10.1177/1077559512454216
 

 

Maybe abstinence sex education is harmful

There has been a movement in the religious right to push teenagers to commit to sexual abstinence. Per se, that does not seem like a negative thing. Trying to ensure that teenagers do not find themselves in unwanted parenthood or having to face decisions about what to do with an unwanted pregnancy seem like worthy goals.

Regrettably, that same movement would have abstinence education replace other forms of sexual education. I got to think about this after two recent experiences. The first was reading the 2005 book by Lisa Aronson Fontes, Child abuse and culture. She made reference to a doctoral dissertation by McDonald in 2004 which noted that most sex education occurs in adolescence which is after most victims of sexual abuse have been victimized. Fontes cogently points out that this further shames the victim who did not engage in sexual behavior by choice – but by coercion and force. What then are they to make of statements that they must save themselves for marriage and commit to abstinence? They are already sexually involved because of the abuse.

The second event was meeting with the Tulir Centre for Prevention and Healing of Sexual Abuse . Located in Chennai, India they talk about how victims are often quite young and clearly before they can receive sex education. Indeed, in many cases, they are not in a position to even understand what consent is about.

Sex education that offers children and teenagers information on choices but also helps victims to separate forced sex from sex by choice can help to prevent the unwanted pregnancies. These in turn can add to the children involved in child protection systems – but so too can rapes and molestation. Sex education should add to the efforts to prevent and heal sexual abuse and trauma. It should not be a way in which victims are then re-victimized. 

Crime Stats matter for child protection policy

Despite the fact that the Harper government in Canada has been on a law and order agenda, crime levels in Canada are now at their lowest since 1972. The Globe and Mail reports on new numbers from Statistics Canada stating:

The amount of crime, including violent offences, reported by Canadians dropped again last year, falling to the lowest level since 1972, though there were increases in homicides, some crimes against children and cannabis possession.

Bear in mind that these numbers come as Canada is greatly expanding mandatory minimum sentences that will place more people in jail for longer periods. This need data is part of a stream of data that shows locking most people up does not make things better. Most people benefit from the rehabilitative and preventative approaches that have been the hallmark of the Canadian justice system. Research in the UK recently showed that there is a need to incarcerate the very small numbers of people who represent the repeat criminal offenders and the very violent.

The implications of this new data for child protection are powerful. We simply don't need to be spending literally billions incarcerating people other than the noted group. That money is better spent on rehabilitation and prevention which will:

1. Allow more families to stay together;
2. Result in fewer children living without a parent for longer periods. Research keeps telling us about the importance of both parents to a child;
3. Reduce the intergenerational crime effect;
4. Reduce the increase in criminal and antisocial attitudes that are garnered through stays in prison and exposure to the prison population. This results in less contamination of those attitudes on children if the adult has not been incorporated into those beliefs through prison sentences;
5. Allow better economic outlooks for families who do not lose a potential or current bread winner.

Criminal justice policy has significant implications for child protection. These current stats in Canada should (but won't) cause policy makers to reconsider the sentencing approaches. We have seen some push back by the judiciary and hopefully data like this will cause more.

Mortgage default, foreclosure and Child Abuse

Many who have worked in the area of child abuse know that stress in family can be related to increased risk for abuse in a household. There has been recent suggestions that child abuse may be down in the economically struggling United States. A new article to be published in the journal Paediatrics puts a damper on such hope.

However, the article does show an important link between mortgage delinquency and foreclosure trends. Child abuse went up as these economic hardship factors also increased. The team looked at data from 38 hospitals meaning that the numbers are quite robust. The research concludes:

CONCLUSIONS: Multicenter hospital data show an increase in pediatric admissions for physical abuse and high-risk TBI during a time of declining all-cause injury rate. Abuse and high-risk TBI admission rates increased in relationship to local mortgage delinquency and foreclosure trends

The research also noted that unemployment did not show such a causation.

From a public policy perspective,  this really helps us to see that families facing the effect of losing housing are really under significant stress which affects the safety of children. This might well suggest that the appropriate intervention is to help find some form of place to live that offers dignity and safety for a family.

Crime as a way out

There is often an interface between child protection and criminal behaviours. It is not uncommon for children, particularly teenagers, to be caught up in both systems. Children who have grown up in environments of maltreatment, neglect and abuse may lack the coping skills to face life's challenges. They far too frequently are failing at school - even dropping out - at numbers well in excess of the general population.

Research which I have quoted before notes that children who have grown up in the care system have much poorer outcomes in the areas of relationships, criminal involvement, mental health, unemployment and educational failures. They are prone to economic hardship.

In addition, vulnerable girls within the care systems are targets of those who would sexually exploit. An interesting UK study by the Howard League for Penal Reform has put an interesting window on the role that crime can play for sexually exploited girls. They note in a new study that girls use crime as a way to escape their exploiters or as a cry for help. It may also be a way to express a sense of justice when they feel excluded from traditional avenues. As the report states, it may be crucial to consider the girls as victims who are utilizing crime as  a way to tell their story.

These girls are often already known to child protection.

The Howard League also makes the very crucial point that there is quite a difference between a sexual crime and these children who are sexual crime victims. Policies that divert these youth into treatment and support are preferable to those where they are dealt with as criminals. One approach in Alberta is the Protection of Sexually Exploited Children Act which does offer one mechanism to get these youth into a safe place so that there is time to help them consider using ways out.

It is also worth remembering that girls are not the exclusive gender being victimized, although they are the majority.

The Howard League Report can be found through howardleague.org

Sandusky, Penn State and the Freeh Report

At one level, all of us who work in the field of child protection should celebrate the Freeh Report on the way in which Penn State University handled the sexual abuse allegations regarding former assistant football coach Sandusky. The report is blunt and scathing in pointing out the lack of accountability and responsibility by the university. It makes it clear that these children were not protected and could well have been (not to mention victims that had yet to be brought into Sandusky's abuse).

The report states:

The most saddening finding by the Special Investigative Counsel is the total and consistent disregard by the most senior leaders at Penn State for the safety and welfare of Sandusky’s child victims. As the Grand Jury similarly noted in its presentment,1 there was no “attempt to investigate, to identify Victim 2, or to protect that child or any others from similar conduct except as related to preventing its re‐occurrence on University property.”
Four of the most powerful people at The Pennsylvania State University – President Graham B. Spanier, Senior Vice President‐Finance and Business Gary C. Schultz, Athletic Director Timothy M. Curley and Head Football Coach Joseph V. Paterno – failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade. These men concealed Sandusky’s activities from the Board of Trustees, the University community and authorities. They exhibited a striking lack of empathy for Sandusky’s victims by failing to inquire as to their safety and well‐being, especially by not attempting to determine the identity of the child who Sandusky assaulted in the Lasch Building in 2001. Further, they exposed this child to additional harm by alerting Sandusky, who was the only one who knew the child’s identity, of what McQueary saw in the shower on the night of February 9, 2001.

These individuals, unchecked by the Board of Trustees that did not perform its oversight duties, empowered Sandusky to attract potential victims to the campus and football events by allowing him to have continued, unrestricted and unsupervised access to the University’s facilities and affiliation with the University’s prominent football program. Indeed, that continued access provided Sandusky with the very currency that enabled him to attract his victims. Some coaches, administrators and football program staff members ignored the red flags of Sandusky’s behaviors and no one warned the public about him. (pp.14-15).

Already we see some of those named coming out to deny their culpability. Certainly, the individuals resposnible should be identified and their actions held up to scrutiny with all of the resultant consequences. What matters most here, however, is what can be learned about sexual abuse in institutions that can be useful elsewhere.

The report is long and has many suggestions.

In my mind, one of the most poignant lessons is that wealth, power, prestige can all combine to make an institution and those who serve it wilfully blind to events that can tarnish that reputation. at best, it can cause them to cover up or act behind the scenes. As I have said before, sexual abusers uses secrecy as one of their best tools to keep going In the Sandusky case, he had powerful allies to Penn State to help him with that.

Critics argue against mandatory reporting laws stating that they will lead to a flood of complaints and further over burden an already over burdened child protection system. They fear that the system will become over intrusive and apprehend children who should not be apprehended. Yet, this report shows that without methods to demand institutions and individuals to do the right thing, many will not.

This avoidance of doing the right thing is not unique to child protection. We need only look at yet another series of banking crises emerging in both the United Staes and the United Kingdom to see that.
We have also seen multiple examples of institutions who avoid accepting the responsibility that comes with managing people who abuse children - Mount Cashel Orphanage in Canada; the Roman Catholic church with their priests and brothers in many countries; the Boy Scouts in Canada; The churches who ran the Residential Schools throughout North America and so on.

Thus, we do need government to legislate and regulate as it seems too many of its citizens and institutions aren't willing to do the right thing.