This article acknowledges the lack of research in understanding how children of incarcerated parents are impacted. The authors discuss the multitude of consequences that can affect children in the present and future; including delinquent behavior, learning barriers, unemployment, and antisocial behavior. With the expansion of criminality, the problem is vastly growing.

The authors didn’t find evidence to the claim that “children of prisoners are five to six times more likely to be convicted or imprisoned” compared to their peers. They blame variables and use of methodological approaches insufficiently as reasons why findings may have been exaggerated. The authors do present evidence that shows that children are more likely to be arrested, antisocial, and the like, but maintain that data is limited and needs more research to have a definitive answer. The authors referenced the new Cambrdge study and did discuss that it found antisocial behavior to be more apparent in those who had parents incarcerated.

After discussing five studies that addressed children’s behavior patterns with incarcerated parents, they conclude that parental imprisonment puts a risk on children to develop antisocial behavior patterns. However, they attribute this not to it being a cause, but rather the imprisonment of a parent to be a predictor of child outcomes. They believe that these consequences are from disadvantages of the parents’ imprisonment, rather than the imprisonment itself. Therefore, they conclude that damage was done to the child before the parents was imprisoned.

The authors do not dismiss that trauma theory, popular in small-scale studies of the affects of children of prisoners. They cite that the longer or more often a parent is incarcerated can have negative affects on the child’s emotional state.

Overall, the authors cite many mediating factors in the study of children with imprisoned parents. They seem to hold the standards exceptionally high for the methodological approaches to this study and dismiss the studies previously done based on rigor and mediating variables.