Corrections Community

Got an interesting question from an academic who got it from a prosecutor today.  Does anyone know of any studies involving offenders who were born to mothers while the mother was herself in prison?  It boggled my mind, but that doesn't take much.  Before I sign off on the "those studies don't exist option," can anyone tell me if they do, in fact, exist?

I don't think you'll find a study that exactly matches that question, as you already suspect.  Perhaps the closest you might come is to get your hands on the January 2007 issue of Criminal Justice and Behavior, which has an article by Joseph Murray and others, "Crime in Adult Offspring of Prisoners: A Cross-National Comparison of Two Longitudinal Samples."  The study doesn't address which of the parents is in prison, but it does look at offending rates of offspring based on whether the parental imprisonment took place before the child was born, age 0 to 6, and age 7 to 19.  It also includes an extensive literature review.