ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
Filtering by
- All Subjects: criminology
- Creators: Wright, Kevin A.
incarceration a punishment, but what can be done to ensure that this punishment has the least harmful effect on children? Prison visitation presents an intriguing opportunity to lessen the potential harms of parental incarceration. Using data from the Arizona Prison Visitation Project (APVP), the current study focuses on inmates who were parents to minor children and seeks to determine: 1) do different types and different amounts of prison contact (in-person, phone, and mail) correlate with changes in the quality of parent-child relationships and 2) does a change in parent-child relationship quality correlate with a change in child behavior. The results from the analysis suggest that visitation and mail contact are associated with positive increases in parent-child relationship quality.
Also, positive changes in parent-child relationship quality were associated with a decrease in the odds of children having behavioral problems during incarceration. This study provides some support for the ability that prison contact can have to increase relationship quality, which in turn, may decrease the presence of behavioral issues in the children of incarcerated parents. Future directions in policy should consider measures to subsidize or refund contact costs, encourage contact between parents and their children, and involve children in in-prison programming designed to improve contact and relationships between parents and their children.