Parents Behind Bars: The life of a family with an incarcerated parent

   The names of the students in this article have been changed for their privacy.

    2.7 million. According to the Pew Charitable Trusts, this is the number of children in the United States with an incarcerated parent. This means that an estimated one in every 28 children has a parent in jail or prison.

An estimated 809,800 prisoners of the 1,518,535 held in the nation’s prisons at midyear 2007 were parents of minor children, according to the Bureau of Justice. Adrianne Cleven/The Omniscient
An estimated 809,800 prisoners of the 1,518,535 held in the nation’s prisons at midyear 2007 were parents of minor children, according to the Bureau of Justice. Adrianne Cleven/The Omniscient

    Siblings Steven and Jennifer Brown know the consequences of such a situation all too well.

    “We were a family,” said Steven, a Northwood junior. “I had my two parents and my six siblings together, and now we’re split up four ways. It’s affected my life completely. It’s completely opposite from how it used to be.”

    The Browns’ father has been incarcerated twice. First arrested in 2010, he faced charges regarding embezzlement of up to $200,000 and tax evasion. According to Jennifer, a sophomore in college, her father stole money from the company for which he worked.

    Jennifer described her experience when her father was first arrested.

    “It was just shock,” Jennifer said. “I came home from school one day, and he was gone… and it was just crazy. My whole life changed. We lived in a really big house from all my dad’s embezzlement money, which is funny. I really lived comfortably growing up, and we always had a really stable family unit…. That was really broken for me, and I had a lot of feelings I never thought I’d have to deal with. My dad had [always] been in my life and framed himself as a guy who taught his kids morals, but then he turned it all around on us and lied to us.”

    Steven described a similar feeling of disbelief.

    “I didn’t believe it,” Steven said. “It’s not something you can accept right away. I was in denial, but I had never seen my mom like this. I knew she wasn’t lying. It was very emotional.”

    The arrest changed the Browns’ lives dramatically. The family, which lived in another state at the time, was forced to move to North Carolina to live with relatives. When their father was released on probation, he moved the family into a new house in Pittsboro.

    “When he got out the first time, there were just good feelings, like, ‘We can only go up from here,’” Steven said. “Everything was just really positive. We accepted him back into our lives, so we had high hopes, and we trusted him.”

    Both Steven and Jennifer struggle with forgiving their father.

    “Him coming back after he went to prison the first time was really a hard adjustment period, because I was really hesitant to be forgiving in those few years, and my mom really pressured me to be forgiving, because she was trying to do the same thing,” Jennifer said.

    Despite their hopes, Jennifer and Steven’s father was arrested again in 2015 for obtaining property under false pretenses.

    “I think everyone just wanted everything to go back to normal, and that normal period lasted for about a year, and then finances weren’t making sense,” Jennifer said. “We were evicted from three different houses. Our water got shut off one time…. My mom didn’t have a job, because we didn’t have a car for her to go to work, and she had seven children who she was taking care of while my dad was the primary breadwinner…. The last year we were evicted from our house was over Christmas break of my freshman year of college. That lasted for like two weeks, and then all of a sudden, we were back in the house. My dad had paid off our landlord; everything was fine. But then we come to find out that he had stolen that money from the people he was working for at that time.”

    According to the Pew Charitable Trusts, 44 percent of parents held in state prisons lived with their children prior to incarceration. More than half of imprisoned parents (52 percent of mothers and 54 percent of fathers) were the primary earners for their children. One study found that in the period the father was behind bars, the child’s income fell 22 percent from the year preceding the father’s incarceration.

    “I don’t think a lot of people understand that not everyone’s problems are just school,” Jennifer said. “They go home to a whole different world that… might be really isolating to them…. Maybe the reason that this kid failed a test was because things are bad at home, or the reason this kid is awkward or has social anxiety or problems in learning or feeling like they can speak out in class, it might just be because something really, really impactful is going on at home.”

    In 2004, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts, approximately 59 percent of parents in a state correctional facility and 45 percent of parents in a federal correctional facility reported never having had a personal visit from their children.

    “I’ve gotten four or five cards and letters from him,” Steven said. “I’ve written to him once, and I plan to again some day soon, but I’ve never visited him and don’t have any plans to. I don’t think he deserves, after what he’s done, to see his kids. I’ve written to him to let him know I still care about him, but I know that me forgiving him doesn’t necessarily mean I’m ready for him to be back in my life.”

    Jennifer has had no contact with her father since his arrest last year.

    “He wrote my mom a letter asking for my address, and I asked her to not give it to him,” Jennifer said. “I think part of me wants to write him a letter saying that I don’t want him to contact me, especially once he’s out. The time my dad was out of prison was really traumatic, and there was a lot of emotional abuse that went on in my family. I’ve healed a lot from that and from the times that he’s hurt me or my mom or my siblings. I feel like we are a lot better off without him, which really sucks to say, because that’s my dad. At the same time, he’s just not the dad I used to have.”

    Children with incarcerated parents often find the situation difficult to manage. Some, like Jennifer, try to focus on other aspects of their lives.

    “Two weeks after my dad went to prison, I was hired at two different places, and I just dove right into that. I just worked; that’s how I coped with it, and it’s maybe not the healthiest way to deal with it, but I made myself not think about my family or what I was losing…. I took on more responsibilities and leadership roles; I made myself kind of unavailable to talk about how sad I was…. I feel like I’ve actually really healed from doing all of that.”

    Despite her difficulties, Jennifer acknowledges the positive aspects of her situation.

    “To look at the positive of it, I feel like I’ve really learned a lot about how to be an adult,” Jennifer said. “I still don’t really know what I’m doing, but I’m being forced into making decisions that are grown up. I finance my own car…. I didn’t ever really date in high school, and now I have a serious relationship with somebody. I think I’ve kind of created my own family in a way, and I’ve created fallbacks and support systems…. I’ve really taught myself how to take care of myself emotionally and physically.”

    Steven and Jennifer’s father’s release from prison is scheduled for May. After everything Steven has been through, he offered words of advice.

    “Don’t lie, and make sure you value your life,” Steven said. “Be thankful for what you have, because in any minute, it could be gone.”

– By Becca Heilman