Uncounted and Unseen

By: Jeff Kelly Lowenstein Across the nation, children of the incarcerated, as much as their parents, bear the consequences of misdeeds or mistakes. They are disproportionately poor, African American and Latino and, for many, their lives are shaped by the same cycle of poverty, violence and recidivism that ensnares their parents.

Community Renewal Society, publisher of The Chicago Reporter, hopes to stop this cycle by pursuing a campaign of public education, civic engagement and direct advocacy to ensure that the needs of these children are met. The reports in this issue are part of an investigative series by the Reporter and Catalyst Chicago, our sister publication, that looks at the lives of children whose parents are or have been behind bars. The articles, in turn, will inform the work of Civic Action, Community Renewal’s organizing and advocacy arm, to build a broad-based regional coalition to help these children.

In its series on children with incarcerated parents, the Reporter chose to withhold the names and identifiable photographs of all children younger than 17 out of concern for their privacy. Pseudonyms are used in all cases, even though caregivers of some children gave the Reporter permission to use real names. Those who are older are also not named when they requested that their identities be protected.
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Even though he was just 4 years old, Jimmy still remembers his mother's expression on the cold winter afternoon when two white men in black suits led her away.

"I could tell she was sad, but she tried to smile," says Jimmy, now a sturdy 13-year-old with close-cropped hair and delicate eyelashes living in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood. The men in black suits were federal law enforcement officials and his mother was being arrested on drug charges, but Jimmy says he did not understand why she was taken away until a year later. His great aunt and grandmother assured him that he would see his mother again soon.

The next time Jimmy saw his mother was several months later in court.

Since her conviction, visits have been rare. Jimmy and his mother last saw each other three years ago. "I miss them, but it's okay," says Jimmy, whose father is also serving time on drug-related charges.

With his parents' arrests, Jimmy joined the tens of thousands of children throughout Chicago, Cook County and the rest of Illinois with incarcerated parents.

It is an unenviable membership.

Despite valiant work by many agencies and prison facilities, services for children with incarcerated parents in Illinois resemble a fragile web in which few of the strands connect and through which many children fall.

Although many say an effort to meet children's needs require a comprehensive approach, a Chicago Reporter investigation found that many inmates are unaware of available services for their children, many caregivers experience financial strain, and overwhelmed service providers are perceived by inmates to work alone, rather than in concert with families and other agencies.

The result: Many children with incarcerated parents become the invisible victims of crime, part of an illdefined population that often sees its needs unmet.

"There are so few people accounting for or accommodating these kids," said Nell Bernstein, author of "All Alone in the World: Children of the Incarcerated." "A few jails [or] a few nonprofits- but it's not systematic. They're small pilot programs with three-year funding or one really altruistic person crusading for the cause.

"My sense is that most of them are receiving no services," Bernstein said.

During January and February, the Reporter surveyed nearly 100 prisoners and more than two dozen experts and social service agencies to find out what they thought children needed during their parent's arrest, sentencing, incarceration and release.

The Reporter also interviewed caregivers and representatives of institutions like the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, the Illinois Department of Corrections, and the Cook County Sheriff's Office.

A consistent analysis emerged: Children's needs begin the moment their parents are arrested and continue through their trial, sentencing, incarceration and release from prison. About two-thirds of the inmates and 80 percent of the providers, for example, said children need their parents to be arrested in ways that do not compound what are already traumatic events.

Christina Jose-Kampfner, a professor of educational psychology at Eastern Michigan University, has shown that many children with arrested mothers exhibit symptoms of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. "One of the things that people don't understand is that, for these kids, it's like a war zone," she said.

Whenever possible, children should be removed from the home when parents are being arrested or have a youth officer separate them from the room, according to Terry Solomon, executive director of Illinois African-American Family Commission, an agency that focuses on the well-being of black families in Illinois.

Solomon added that the police need training for going into homes where they know a child lives. "Sometimes the language can be offensive and vile," she said."We need to be careful about how we conduct ourselves in terms of law enforcement around children."

But Marcel Bright, a news affairs officer for the Chicago Police Department, said nearly all officers are sensitive to the trauma children can experience. He explained that police often ask children to leave the room or to have another adult who is not being arrested escort them from the area where the parent is being arrested.

The difficulty comes, Bright said, when the person arrested is uncooperative. Officers "have to do what they are legally bound to do and place that person in custody," he said.

DeeAnn Newell, a 2006 Senior Justice Fellow of the Open Society Institute in New York, said the parent's arrest can be used as a point of intervention to preserve the family that is undergoing a significant trauma."We should [look] at early arrest as an opportunity to pinpoint and work on family issues," said Newell, who has been working with 15 states to pursue a Bill of Rights for Children of the Incarcerated.

The work should continue after the arrest, according to the Reporter's survey results.

More than three-quarters of providers and female inmates, and more than two-thirds of male inmates, expressed that children need advocacy during the court process and family support groups during the incarceration process.

And there was also a strong belief in the need for continuing services after the parent was released. More than 75 percent of providers, more than 77 percent of female inmates and more than 50 percent of male prisoners supported this idea.

These services should be continuous and coordinated, according to William Scott, program associate at Le Penseur Youth and Family Services, an agency in the South Chicago neighborhood that provides mentoring and transitional living services.

Children need "wraparound services from time of arrest through the sentencing and the incarceration period," Scott said. "As one of the incarcerated parents put it, 'When you sentence the parents to three years, five years and life, … the child has been sentenced, also.'"

"The part when it really breaks [down] is not to have those services in place for infants, pre-adolescent, adolescents and young adults," Scott said.

Those breakdowns appear to happen often, despite providers, parents and caregivers alike giving high marks to the individual agencies for which they work and with which they have interacted.

But the glowing reviews for individual services like the Lutheran Social Services of Illinois' Connections program rarely seem to extend to comprehensive plans forged by families and agencies to meet children's needs.

Multiple barriers exist to the creation and execution of these plans.

To begin, the number of children with incarcerated parents in Chicago and the state is not known. Estimates vary, but a precise number has remained elusive.

According to national figures, black children are nine times more likely than white children to have an incarcerated parent, and Latino children are three times more likely than white children.

Journalist and author Bernstein noted that it is difficult to obtain precise information about these children because the criminal justice system does not require that any is collected. She believes this fact is indicative of the low social value these children seem to have.

"It says something about how invisible and incidental these kids are-even the national numbers are estimates," Bernstein said.

This challenge is not unique to Illinois, according to Newell of the Open Society Institute, who noted that only three states require the counting of children with incarcerated parents.

Martin Feliciano, who handles the re-entry process at Humboldt Park Social Services, said the absence of this information means that children's needs can go unmet. "These agencies might not even be aware that the majority of kids are children of incarcerated parents, so they're not touching that topic,"Feliciano said."They're not labeled, and the people who are running the program have not accepted that 10 of the 50 kids in the program are children of incarcerated parents."

The lack of accurate numbers is far from the only challenge in meeting the needs of children with incarcerated parents. Another major one: gaps in the awareness inmates have of available services. For example, 17 out of 52-or nearly 1 in every 3-female inmates said that counseling is a service that their children needed but thought it did not exist-even though counseling and related services are the most commonly offered by providers.

This finding did not shock Linda Jones, program director of We Can, an agency in the Woodlawn neighborhood that works with former prisoners. "I don't find that surprising," she said. "There does not exist, say, a Yellow Pages of resources or a main site for resources available for ex-offenders."

Jones explained that an Illinois group is trying to assemble such a book that would be available in prison and upon prisoners' release but added that, "It's hard because a lot of services out there that started just a year ago are not in operation any longer or they're bogus."

A resource book that is distributed to parents whose children are in precarious situations would be a positive step, according to Patricia Seay, a social worker for Passages Alternative Living Programs, a social service agency in the Douglas neighborhood that advocates for families.

But she added it might not always work to simply give someone a list."Caregivers need to have someone they can ask about the service and they need to feel safe," she said.

For her part, Shannis Stock, assistant warden for programs at Lincoln Correctional Center, said this lack of awareness of available services may stem both from the relationship between the incarcerated mother and the caregiver, as well as the dearth of counseling-providing agencies that come to prisons.

"If the women said [there isn't] counseling and the counselors said it's offered, the gap is between the incarcerated mother and the caregiver," Stock said. "Either the caregiver doesn't know about the resource or may not feel that the child needs it or doesn't want to take the initiative to put the child in it."

In addition to not making informational visits to prisons, providers often appear not to be collaborating with other agencies, according to inmates.

For example, of the 32 female Lincoln inmates who reported receiving services, just 10-or less than one-third-said they were referred by that agency to another provider.

Of the men who filled out the survey at Sheridan Correctional Center, just three of the nine who received services said they were referred by that agency to another provider.

Caregivers reported a similar experience. One father who is caring for his four children while his wife is in prison and participates in Lutheran's Connections program, says he has not been connected to other services. "There really is no help for the children when you really look at the system," he said.

"There needs to be a support system created for the children to relieve some of the pressure from the caregivers."

The providers told a different story. Thirteen out of 17 agencies that provided direct services to children with incarcerated parents said they connected clients to other agencies.

"We have structured meetings," said Louis Jackson, pastor at the New Life Non-Denominational Christian Church. "When there's a need, we find the individual that has that expertise and send them out for that particular job and that workshop. We support each other with that."

But difficulties can arise even when services are coordinated. They start with transportation. Eight of the female inmates said transportation to the prison was the most needed service that they thought did not exist-the most often cited issue after counseling and visiting.

Peter Palanca, vice president of TASC Inc. of Illinois, a multi-service agency that works with underserved populations, said the "single-biggest challenge for people to getting services is transportation."

Bernstein noted that in Illinois and across the nation, many prisons are built in rural areas, while the majority of children with incarcerated parents live in urban centers. Other providers said they are taxed by high levels of client demand without sufficient funding, and that affects their ability to reach out to colleagues.

"People are doing the best they can, but they don't have a lot of resources," said Brenda Thompson, president and CEO of the Branch Family Institute in south-suburban Evergreen Park. "People who are committed to the work are not always able to have the resources to do the work."

Scott of Le Penseur concurred: "The big problem is that there are great agencies in isolation. It's very difficult to bring people together for coordination and collaboration."

Another obstacle to meeting children's needs was a mismatch between the caregivers, who often report that they most need financial assistance, and the nonprofit agencies that are more likely to provide counseling, mentoring or other services.

"I need money to help give my granddaughter what she needs," said Debra Gaitors. "I haven't gotten any help." Gaitors is not the only grandmother needing an infusion of money, according to Dorenda Dixon, program director of the Department of Women's Justice Services.

"When the mom is getting arrested, grandma gets the call and suddenly she has these kids to worry about," she says. "Nobody says anything to her about how she is going to pay the food bill, the transportation cost, [and] get help with school clothes."

And Dixon notes that, for some grandmothers, the idea of going to the welfare office is not feasible. First of all, they aren't legal guardians for the children. Furthermore, there's a stigma combined with a sense of fear.

"Some are afraid of DCFS,"she says."They don't want them to know that they have these kids because they will be asking about space requirements and beds. It is not as easy as, 'Go over here and get these benefits.' The benefits come with an invasion."

Dixon says that these fears are not unfounded. Many families live on blocks where children have been taken away. "They hear the stories and they say, 'Look what happened to Mattie,'" she said."We have to find a way to not punish people who ask for help."

But DCFS spokesman Kendall Marlowe said many people misunderstand the role of child welfare and public assistance programs.

"Under both federal and state law, child welfare is not- and has never been-established as a public assistance program," Marlowe said. "We serve children and families who have come to our attention through an allegation of child abuse or neglect. This is not a voluntary intervention.

"DCFS gets involved in allegations of abuse and neglect, not from an inability to pay light bills," he said.

The Illinois Department of Human Services can be a source of financial assistance, depending on the family and child's eligibility.

Department spokesman Tom Green said families that qualify for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families can receive $107 per month per child and can also be eligible for medical coverage, food stamps and subsidized child care.

But Annetta Wilson, executive director of Sankofa Safe Child Initiative, a multi-service agency in the North Lawndale neighborhood that works to keep families intact, says that grandparents often don't want to ask the welfare system for a cash-only grant for their grandchildren.

In some cases, the grandparents don't have children's formal guardianship-which they would need to get through probate court in order to get cash assistance."Those kids were just given to them,"Wilson says.

In other cases, it should be available to them, but they are hesitant to request it."Most of them don't want the system at the table,"Wilson says.

She says she has met some grandparents with as many as 10 grandchildren, and they are worried that, if a state caseworker realized this, they might be aghast and take the children away. These grandparents, Wilson says, survive on pensions and social security.

Green said he did not know the issue well enough to comment on why people would be tentative about using the system.

Despite these multiple problems, Newell of the Open Society Institute sounded an optimistic note, saying that Illinois ranked in the upper half of the 15 states in which she works. "It's taken 25 years to get to where we are now, [and] we are cresting," said Newell, citing the work of organizations like Chicago Legal Advocacy for Incarcerated Mothers.

Still, Newell conceded that the process of creating a seamless system of service provision is only beginning.

Bernstein said she shared Newell's positive view of the growth in public consciousness but warned against paying less attention to these children.

"I just think we don't want to get complacent about things like mentors and services because the issues that are really impacting kids' lives are systemic and services can't solve them," said Bernstein, referring to the country's prison population, which, at more than 2 million people, is the world's largest.