It is estimated that more than 600,000 individuals are released from state and federal prisons each year in the United States. The vast majority (around 90%) of incarcerated parents are fathers. Keep in mind that, while a precise annual number of fathers returning from prison is not readily available, the data indicates that it is a substantial figure, likely in the hundreds of thousands each year, representing a significant portion of the total prison releases.
These fathers and their families have considerable needs as they navigate reentry and reunification after incarceration. Helping fathers to meet these needs does more than assist the fathers. Successful reintegration improves the outcomes of their children, reduces re-offense and fosters stable families. In today’s article, I will share what I have learned from research on this topic and from my experience serving incarcerated and returning fathers.
What Returning Fathers Need
The greatest needs of fathers of minor children returning to their communities after incarceration are multifaceted and interconnected. These include:
1. Family Reunification and Support:
- Rebuilding Relationships: Years of separation can strain or damage relationships with their children and co-parents. They need support in re-establishing trust, communication, and positive parenting roles. This includes addressing emotional barriers and past resentments.
- Maintaining Connections During Incarceration: While still incarcerated, maintaining contact through visits, calls, and letters is crucial for a smoother transition upon release. Support for affordable communication and transportation for families is essential.
- Co-Parenting Support: Navigating co-parenting relationships after incarceration can be challenging. Fathers need resources to improve communication, establish clear boundaries, and develop a healthy co-parenting dynamic.
- Family Therapy and Counseling: Professional support can help families address the trauma of separation, navigate changing roles, and rebuild their relationships in a healthy way.
2. Economic Stability:
- Employment: Finding stable and meaningful employment is critical for financial independence and fulfilling parental responsibilities. However, a criminal record often presents a significant barrier. Support with job searching, resume building, interview skills, and fair-chance hiring initiatives are vital.
- Housing: Secure and stable housing is a fundamental need. Many returning fathers face homelessness or unstable living situations, making it difficult to care for their children. Assistance with finding affordable housing is crucial.
- Financial Literacy: Managing finances, budgeting, and understanding financial obligations like child support can be overwhelming. Education and resources in financial literacy are essential for long-term stability.
- Child Support Assistance: Navigating child support obligations, especially with potential back payments accrued during incarceration, can be a major stressor. Support in understanding and modifying child support orders, as well as resources to manage these obligations, is needed.
3. Personal Well-being and Support:
- Mental Health Services: Incarceration can lead to trauma, depression, anxiety, and other mental health challenges. Access to mental health evaluations, therapy, and support groups is crucial for successful reintegration and healthy parenting.
- Substance Abuse Treatment: If substance abuse was a contributing factor to incarceration, ongoing treatment and support are essential to prevent relapses and promote stability.
- Trauma-Informed Care: Understanding and addressing the trauma experienced by both the father and the children due to incarceration is vital in providing effective support.
- Life Skills Development: Depending on the length of incarceration, fathers may need assistance with basic life skills, including technology, transportation, and navigating everyday tasks in the community.
- Mentoring and Peer Support: Connecting with mentors or other formerly incarcerated individuals who have successfully reintegrated can provide invaluable guidance, encouragement, and a sense of belonging.
4. Legal and System Navigation:
- Understanding Legal Obligations: Returning fathers need clarity on parole or probation requirements, restrictions, and their legal rights and responsibilities as parents.
- Access to Legal Aid: Legal assistance may be needed to address issues related to child custody, visitation rights, and outstanding legal matters.
- Navigating Social Services: Understanding and accessing available social services, such as healthcare, food assistance, and housing programs, can be complex. Support in navigating these systems is essential.
In summary… the greatest needs of fathers returning from incarceration revolve around rebuilding their lives, reconnecting with their families, achieving financial stability, and addressing their personal well-being in a supportive and understanding community environment.
Addressing these needs not only benefits the fathers but also significantly improves outcomes for their children and the community by reducing recidivism and fostering healthy families.
Specific Benefits of Reentry Programs
Effective reentry programs for incarcerated parents offer significant benefits to their children, fostering improved well-being and a more positive trajectory for their lives. These benefits include:
- Strengthened Family Bonds: Programs often prioritize family reunification and provide resources for maintaining contact during incarceration through visits, calls, and other communication methods. Upon release, they offer support for rebuilding relationships, which is crucial for the child’s sense of security and belonging.
- Improved Emotional Well-being: Children of incarcerated parents are at higher risk for emotional distress, anxiety, and depression. Effective reentry programs that support the parent’s stability and reintegration can reduce these negative impacts. A stable home environment and a positive parent-child relationship contribute significantly to the child’s emotional health.
- Enhanced Economic Stability: Reentry programs that focus on the parents securing employment and stable housing directly benefit the child by reducing financial strain on the family. This can lead to improved access to resources, better living conditions, and reduced stress related to poverty.
- Reduced Behavioral Problems: Children with incarcerated parents are more likely to exhibit behavioral issues. When a parent successfully reenters the community and establishes a supportive and nurturing environment, it can mitigate these risks and promote positive behavior in children.
- Improved Academic Performance: The stress and instability associated with parental incarceration can negatively affect a child’s academic performance. A stable home life and parental support, facilitated by successful reentry, can lead to better school engagement and achievement.
- Increased Access to Support Services: Reentry programs often connect returning parents and their families with essential support services, including mental health care, substance abuse treatment, parenting classes, and legal aid. These resources can address specific challenges the family faces and promote overall well-being.
- Reduced Stigma and Isolation: Children of incarcerated parents often experience stigma and social isolation. When reentry programs help parents become productive members of the community, it can reduce this stigma and create a more supportive social environment for the children.
- Breaking the Cycle of Incarceration: By supporting successful reentry and family reunification, these programs can contribute to breaking the intergenerational cycle of incarceration. Children who maintain positive relationships with their returning parents and experience a stable home life are less likely to become involved in the criminal justice system themselves.
In essence, effective reentry programs create a ripple effect, where the successful reintegration of the parent leads to a more stable, supportive, and nurturing environment for the child, fostering their healthy development and increasing their opportunities for a positive future.
Best Practices
The best practices of successful reentry programs are multifaceted and aim to address the complex needs of individuals returning to their communities after incarceration, including fathers. These practices generally encompass the following key elements:
Early Intervention and Planning, Holistic and Integrated Services, Evidence-Based Practices and Principles, Strong Community Partnerships and Collaboration, Emphasis on Family Engagement and Support, Mentoring and Peer Support, Timely and Accessible Services, and Measurement and Evaluation.
If you are a returning father, seek out a local program that has a record of success.
Spiritual Reconnection
Reconnecting with a spiritual community after incarceration can be a profoundly important aspect of successful reentry for several compelling reasons:
1. Provides a Foundation for Positive Change and Identity:
- Moral and Ethical Framework: Spiritual communities often provide a clear moral and ethical framework that can guide individuals in making prosocial choices and developing a positive value system, which can replace previous negative influences.
- Meaning and Purpose: Reconnecting with faith can offer a sense of meaning and purpose in life beyond past mistakes, helping individuals to redefine their identity in a positive light.
- Hope and Forgiveness: Spirituality often emphasizes themes of hope, redemption, and forgiveness (both self and from a higher power), which can be crucial for healing from the past and moving forward.
2. Offers Essential Social Support and Belonging:
- Prosocial Network: Spiritual communities provide a built-in network of supportive individuals who share similar values and beliefs. This can combat the isolation and loneliness often experienced post-release and offer positive peer influence.
- Acceptance and Non-Judgment: Ideally, spiritual communities offer a welcoming and non-judgmental environment where returning individuals can find acceptance and understanding, reducing the stigma they may face elsewhere.
- Accountability and Encouragement: Being part of a spiritual community can provide a sense of accountability to a positive group, as well as ongoing encouragement in navigating the challenges of reentry.
3. Fosters Emotional and Mental Well-being:
- Coping Mechanisms: Spiritual practices like prayer, meditation, and communal worship can offer healthy coping mechanisms for stress, anxiety, and trauma often associated with incarceration and reentry.
- Inner Peace and Strength: Connecting with one’s spirituality can provide a sense of inner peace, strength, and resilience during a challenging transition period.
- Emotional Healing: Spiritual communities can be a source of comfort and support in processing the emotional wounds of past actions and incarceration.
4. Facilitates Practical Reintegration:
- Resource Networks: Spiritual communities can sometimes offer practical assistance such as job leads, housing support, clothing, and other resources through their members or outreach programs.
- Mentorship Opportunities: Individuals within the spiritual community may step forward to offer mentorship and guidance to those reentering society.
- Community Engagement: Participation in spiritual community activities can foster a sense of connection to the broader community and provide opportunities for prosocial engagement.
5. Reduces Recidivism:
- Studies Suggest a Link: Research suggests that religious involvement and participation in faith-based programs can be associated with reduced recidivism rates. This may be due to the factors mentioned above, such as the development of a positive identity, social support, and moral guidance.
- Moral Community: Returning to a community with a strong religious presence (“moral community”) has also been linked to lower recidivism rates, suggesting the importance of the broader social environment.
In conclusion, reconnecting with a spiritual community after incarceration offers a holistic form of support that addresses the spiritual, emotional, social, and sometimes practical needs of returning individuals. It can be a powerful catalyst for positive transformation, providing a sense of belonging, purpose, and guidance that significantly contributes to successful and sustained reintegration into society.
Inspiration From Holy Scriptures
22 “But the father said to his servants,] ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. 23 And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; 24 for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry .– Luke 15:22-24 NKJV
The story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11-32 illustrates God’s willingness to embrace those who return to Him. Communities of faith are likewise called to welcome and celebrate those who have paid their debt to society and return to their spiritual home.
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Additional Resources
- National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse, Fatherhood.gov, offers comprehensive resources for fathers, including those reentering from incarceration, with toolkits, support materials, and a helpline.
- Prison Fellowship PrisonFellowship.org/resources/support-for-families Provides faith-based reentry programs, family support services, and mentoring for returning citizens.
- National Reentry Resource Center NationalReentryResourceCenter.org Offers evidence-based practices, state-specific information, and targeted resources for formerly incarcerated parents reconnecting with their families.
About the Author
Eli Williams is a father, grandfather, and mentor of several men. He and his wife Judy have served in community outreach ministry since the late 1980s and founded Urban Light Ministries in 1995. Eli has been a professional fatherhood practitioner since 2006 and is an ordained Christian minister helping to pastor New Hope Church in Springfield, Ohio. Reverend Williams authored Father Love—The Powerful Resource Every Child Needs in 2016 and led ULM in the creation of Fathering Strong.
Reach him by email at ewilliams@urbanlight.org.
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