Dataset Information

Mothers and fathers in the criminal justice system and children's child protective services involvement.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Parental criminal justice system (CJS) involvement is a marker for child protective services (CPS) involvement.

Objective

To document how parental criminal case processing affects children's CPS involvement.

Participants and setting

Participants included mothers and fathers with a serious criminal charge (mothers?=?78,882; fathers?=?165,070) and without any criminal charge (mothers?=?962,963; fathers?=?743,604) between 2008-2012. Statewide North Carolina records on court proceedings, births, CPS assessments/investigations, and foster care placements were used.

Methods

The observational unit was an individual's first charge date of a year. Outcomes were CPS assessment/investigation and foster care entry within six months and alternatively three years following the charge. Key explanatory variables were whether the charges resulted in prosecution, conviction following prosecution, and an active sentence conditional on conviction. An instrumental variables approach was used.

Results

Parents charged with a criminal offense had higher rates of having a CPS assessment/investigation during the three years preceding the charge than parents who were not charged. Among mothers who were convicted, CPS assessment/investigation increased 8.1 percent (95 % CI: 2.2, 13.9) and 9.5 percent (95 % CI: 1.3, 17.6) 6 months and 3 years following the charge. An active sentence increased CPS assessment/investigations by 21.6 percent (95 % CI: 6.4, 36.7) within 6 months. For fathers, active sentence increased foster care placement by 1.6 percent (95 % CI: 0.24, 2.9) within 6 months of the criminal charge.

Conclusions

Changing parental incarceration rates would change CPS caseloads substantially. The criminal justice and CPS systems work with overlapping populations, data and services sharing should be considered a high priority.

SUBMITTER: Gifford EJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7672507 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Mothers and fathers in the criminal justice system and children's child protective services involvement.

Gifford E J EJ Evans K E KE Eldred Kozecke L L Sloan F A FA

Child abuse & neglect 20200128

<h4>Background</h4>Parental criminal justice system (CJS) involvement is a marker for child protective services (CPS) involvement.<h4>Objective</h4>To document how parental criminal case processing affects children's CPS involvement.<h4>Participants and setting</h4>Participants included mothers and fathers with a serious criminal charge (mothers = 78,882; fathers = 165,070) and without any criminal charge (mothers = 962,963; fathers = 743,604) between 2008-2012. Statewide North Carolina records ...[more]

PMID: 32004822

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Project description:Importance:Health disparities between African Americans and Whites have persisted in the United States. Researchers have recently hypothesized that the relatively poor health of African Americans may be caused, in part, by African American overrepresentation in the criminal justice system. Objectives:To test the hypothesis that criminal justice system involvement is associated with poor health and greater health risk when controlling for unobserved family factors through a discordant sibling design. Methods:Subjects were drawn from the Carolina African American Twin Study of Aging (CAATSA). Criminal conviction records were extracted from North Carolina's Department of Public Safety. Six measures of health and one measure of health risk were analyzed. The health of convicted respondents was compared to that of unrelated non-convicted respondents matched on childhood and demographic factors ("matched sample"). Convicted respondents were also compared to non-convicted siblings ("discordant sibling sample"). Results:The matched sample included 134 CAATSA respondents. On average, convicted CAATSA respondents, compared to matched non-convicted respondents, were in worse health. Convicted respondents had worse mean self-reported health, worse lung function, more depressive symptoms, and smoked more. The discordant sibling sample included 74 respondents. Convicted siblings and non-convicted siblings had similar self-reported health, depressive symptoms, and smoking. In general, non-convicted siblings were in worse health than non-convicted respondents from the matched sample, implying that poor health runs in families. Conclusions:This study provided preliminary evidence that some of the association between a criminal record and poor health is confounded by family factors. Though more research is needed to support these results, the study suggests that criminal involvement may not be associated with the surfeit of health problems observed among African Americans. The criminal justice system, nonetheless, could be used to decrease the health disparity.

Project description:We investigate whether autistic people's vulnerability is taken into account at each stage of the criminal justice system (CJS). Defense lawyers from 12 nations were included in the study although the sample was predominantly from the UK. Lawyers completed an online survey regarding one case in which they had defended an autistic client between January 2015 and January 2020; and on one case in which they had defended a nonautistic client charged with a similar offense, to provide a comparison group. Ninety-three lawyers (85% in the UK) reported on one autistic case, and 53 also reported on one nonautistic case. 75% of autistic clients were not given reasonable adjustments during the process. Only 43% were offered an appropriate adult during police investigations, even though they had an existing diagnosis of autism. 59% of prosecution barristers and 46% of judges said or did something during the trial that made the lawyers concerned that they did not have an adequate understanding of autism. Lawyers were 7.58 times more likely to be concerned about their autistic client's effective participation in court and were 3.83 times more likely to be concerned that their autistic clients would engage in self-harm, compared with their nonautistic clients. There is a failure to identify and address autistic peoples' disability within the CJS. There is a need for mandatory autism training for police officers and the judiciary, with a focus on identifying autism and understanding the needs of autistic people so that reasonable adjustments are offered in all cases. LAY SUMMARY: This study sought to investigate if the needs of autistic people are being overlooked by the police and other professionals within the CJS. Results show that autistic people are not always given the support they need during police questioning or in court. The experience of being involved with the police may also have a more negative impact on autistic peoples' mental health than that of nonautistic people.

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Dataset Information

Mothers and fathers in the criminal justice system and children's child protective services involvement.

Background

Objective

Participants and setting

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Mothers and fathers in the criminal justice system and children's child protective services involvement.

Similar Datasets

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