Date of Award

12-2006

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Committee Chair/Advisor

Mobley, Catherine

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis was to test the proposition that parents who are currently incarcerated are at high risk for having children who are also incarcerated. Furthermore, several risk factors, commonly found in homes with previously or currently incarcerated members, were identified and analyzed to predict the odds of an incarcerated parent also having an incarcerated child.
The current study found that the majority of the demographic variables were significant predictors of child incarceration. Furthermore, only a few risk factors were found to be significant predictors of an inmate's child being incarcerated: an inmate having two or more prior incarcerations; an inmate's illegal drug abuse; and an inmate having a parent who was incarcerated. This latter finding was particularly encouraging because this final variable represented a primary objective of this thesis: to determine whether there was any support for the existence of an intergenerational cycle of incarceration.

Included in

Criminology Commons

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.