Exploring the Factors Influencing Family Members' Connections to Incarcerated Individuals

Research Goals and Objectives:

Statement of Purpose.

This study proposes that strong family connections may decrease the likelihood of recidivism and facilitate the process of prisoner reentry and decrease the likelihood of prisoner's children becoming involved in the criminal justice system. The objective of this project is to develop a better understanding of the factors the influence whether a male prisoner's family stays involved in his life during incarceration. This project will describe ( utilizing life history calendars) how prisoners' connections to family members change over time within 5 domains:
1. prisoners relationship with family prior to incarceration
2. prisoners efforts to rehabilitate himself while incarcerated
3. the strain incarceration places on the family
4. economic resources available to the family to maintain the prisoner
5. family's social support system.
These factors may be salient to whether a family maintains a connection to an incarcerated member.

This project further proposes to assess the feasibility of using life history calendars as a data collection tool for examining the changes over time of relationships between family members and prisoners. In past studies, prisoners' connections to family were viewed as a static, dichotomous relationship, with a prisoner being connected to or disconnected from family members.

This research does not seek to evaluate the effectiveness of a particular policy, program or intervention in achieving specific outcomes.ca/ncf