Abstract
Over the last several decades, research has demonstrated the adverse impact incarceration has on sustaining and strengthening familial bonds. Physical and communication barriers are often noted as lead sources of strain in relationships between incarcerated individuals and their loved ones. Studies have shown that the financial burden of prison can also have deleterious impacts on the family reintegration process upon release, particularly for minoritized populations. The current study adds to the discussion on collateral consequences of the carceral state by introducing temporal debt; a novel concept similar to financial debt in that it results from oppressive policies and builds over generations. Findings detail how the carceral state impacts fathers’ regard for temporal provision and enters Black men into a cycle of temporal poverty. The results encourage readers to consider novel means of addressing harm and violence to decrease the perpetuation of familial harm committed by the criminal legal system beyond reformist efforts that often aim to ease parenting from prison.
The United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world (Gramlich, 2021). As a result of political, social, and economic changes, including punitive drug policies, severe sentencing guidelines, and politicized fearmongering, the number of people in prisons and jails went from about 500,000 in 1980 to a peak of 2.3 million in 2008 (Gramlich, 2021; Nellis, 2021). The hyper-use of prisons and jails has been particularly detrimental to Black families, as Black Americans are incarcerated in state prisons at a rate five times that of whites (Nellis, 2021). In 2018, 13% of Black children (compared to 6% of white children) had experienced parental incarceration, an experience shared by a staggering 25% of Black children born in 1990 (compared to 4% of white children born in the same year) (Wildeman, 2009).
Much of the literature examining the impact of incarceration on families focuses either on the effects of parental incarceration for children and their caregivers in the community (Comfort, 2003; Makariev & Shaver, 2010; Murray & Farrington, 2005, 2006; Poehlmann et al., 2010; Wakefield & Wildeman, 2013), or exclusively on the experiences of mothers in prison (Aiello & McCorkel, 2018; Huebner & Gustafson, 2007; Poehlmann, 2005; Turney & Wildeman, 2015). In 1998, Hairston characterized the incarcerated father as “the forgotten parent.” Some research over the last two decades has challenged this notion by focusing exclusively on the paternal experience (Arditti, Smock & Parkman, 2005; Charles, Muentner, & Kjellstrand, 2019; Fowler et al., 2017; McKay, Comfort, Lindquist, & Bir, 2019; Roy & Dyson, 2005; Swisher & Waller, 2008). These studies use quantitative data to evaluate paternal involvement and fathering classes (McKay et al., 2019; Nurse, 2002), narrative inquiry to identify barriers to paternal engagement (Comfort, 2003; Roy & Dyson, 2005), and ethnographic methods to examine practical dynamics of familial relationships upon release (Haney, 2018; McKay et al., 2019). While this research has identified the issue of time as a common motif that is particularly “fraught for fathers” (Haney, 2022, p.254), few, if any, center this issue in their analysis.
Over the last several decades studies are finding that an increasing number of men are conceptualizing fatherhood as “being there” and discussing the importance of quality time in addition to or more than financial provision (Charles, Muentner, & Kjellstrand, 2019; Fowler et al., 2017; Lewis & Hong, 2020). Participants often describe how missing out on building shared experiences and memories is one of the biggest barriers to fathering from prison (Cabrera et al., 2000; Coltrane, 2004; Gerson, 2010; Haney, 2022; LaRossa, 1988; Livingston and McAdoo, 2007; McGill, 2014; Townsend, 2010). Few studies, however, specifically explore how the carceral state, defined by criminal legal practices of stigmatization, incapacitation, criminalization, hypersurveillance, and marginalization, shapes fathers’ experiences of time and regard for temporal provision (Cochran, 1997; Hawkins & Dollahite, 1997).
The current study informs this gap by examining the process of temporal debt; a novel concept similar to financial debt in that it often results from oppressive policies and criminal legal involvement and compounds over generations. Building off Stephen Covey's (1989) concept of the Emotional Bank Account (see Gottman, Coan, Carrere, & Swanson, 1998), the temporal debt framework theorizes that every family unit has a temporal bank account that each member can deposit into or withdraw from. While each moment a family member spends outside of the unit is a withdrawal, these inevitable moments away due to work, school, extracurriculars, and other life events, can be swiftly balanced with invested quality time. Debt occurs when temporal withdrawals are not or cannot be offset by deposits of shared moments and experiences. The current study discusses how the inherent nature of an imposed prison sentence routinely enters Black men into a generational cycle of temporal poverty. The results encourage readers to consider novel means of addressing harm and violence to decrease the perpetuation of familial harm committed by the criminal legal system, beyond reformist efforts that often aim to ease parenting from prison.
Examining carceral fatherhood through a temporal framework
To adequately explore incarcerated fatherhood through a temporal framework, it is imperative to first examine how time has previously been theorized and conceptualized, both broadly, and in the context of carcerality. Time is said to be both objective and chronological and subjective and dependent on our location, experience, and emotions (Crawford, 2015; Munn, 1992; Sorokin & Merton, 1937). Crawford (2015) describes time as social, in that it is a “frame of reference fixed by the rhythm of collective life,” and plural, in that it is defined differently depending on contexts, locations, and activities (p.473). Crawford (2015) goes on to distinguish between Chronos, which is chronological time that moves from future to present to past and is measured quantitatively in seconds, minutes, hours, days, and years, and Kairos, which is our subjective perception of time measured qualitatively in moments.
Penological literature has also long explored the relationship between prison and time, particularly around the concept of “doing time” (Comfort, 2003; Foster, 2019; Foucault, 1975; Sutton, 1987). Within the jail setting, time is often ambiguous and filled with anticipatory stress as most wait an undefined period until their trial or plea negotiation (Turney, in press; Walker, 2022). Within the prison setting, time is something that is both done to individuals, in reference to the imparting of their sentences, and done by individuals, in reference to living out their sentences. The term “serving time” demonstrates time's inherent power, with incarcerated individuals as powerless servants to its passage (Middlemass & Smiley, 2016).
Angela Davis (2003) describes in her seminal book Are Prisons Obsolete? how, following the American Revolution, the value of labor began to be calculated in terms of time and compensated with money. She goes on to explain that punishment began to be imposed through a prison sentence defined by years, months, days, and how this temporal retribution mirrors concepts of loss and cost in a capitalist society. Time is a currency; however, unlike money, where every dollar holds the same value and can be interchanged, each temporal moment is unique and cannot be replaced (Haney, 2022).
A qualitative study drawing from interviews with 33 female partners of male long-term prisoners in the UK found that the most salient form of secondary punishment is the deprivation of “mundane but meaningful family moments” (Kotova, 2019, p.478). The removal of the partner from the home, limitations of visitation, and restrictions put on modes of communication make the ability to have daily spontaneous interaction nearly impossible. The women described how consistent interaction is key to connectedness, and how the distance and barriers of prison dismantled the kind of familial closeness required to feel fulfilled and secure (Kotova, 2019).
Kotova (2019) also found that paternal incarceration challenges synchrony for families, or the ability to experience events together and hold common reference points. A qualitative study conducted by Oldrup (2018) that draws from interviews with 36 children and adolescents similarly found that, by “falling out of time” with the incarcerated parent, children have difficulty connecting or building a familial relationship. Makariev and Shaver (2010) explained, “a child's sense of security is rooted in relationships with familiar caregivers and that security is the necessary foundation for confident and productive exploration of the world and for developing cognitive and social skills that are important throughout life” (p.314). Quality time spent together as a family is, therefore, a key component for children to build secure attachments and foster healthy relationships (Gabb, 2008).
The discussion on time, as demonstrated throughout this section, is multifaceted and complex. Time represents moments, opportunities, money, and power; it can be absent, present, slow, fast, intentional, passive, shared, singular, and all the above. The passage of time is a shared truth for all living beings, and yet can be experienced in a highly subjective manner. The current study untangles some of these notions of time in the context of paternal incarceration to better understand the impact of the carceral state on family systems.
Methods
This article draws from qualitative semi-structured individual interviews conducted with a subsample of participants from a larger qualitative study conducted in the summer of 2018 with Black fathers living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The larger study explored how young Black men define fatherhood and enact fathering in the face of stigma and discrimination. For 5 years, from 2013 to 2018, I worked as an evaluator and consultant for a prison-based fatherhood program, Fathers and Children Together (FACT) (Henson, 2018). During this time, I heard men repeatedly describe how the criminal legal system perpetuates negative stereotypes of Black men, which limit opportunities and present challenges specific to fathering. To explore this matter further, I recruited Black men ages 25–34 years old who had at least one biological child and lived in Southwest Philadelphia to participate in in-depth individual semi-structured interviews.
Beginning in 1981, Philadelphia experienced a spike in incarceration rates that persisted until 2012 (Prison Policy Initiative 2014). Therefore, the purpose of this criteria was to examine the experiences of Black fathers who specifically were coming of age during an era of racially disproportionate mass incarceration and heightened proactive policing tactics (Federal Reserve Economic Data 2017; Garland 2001; Gelman, Fagan, and Kiss 2007; Roberts 2004). Southwest Philadelphia was chosen as the study site because, despite its high rates of poverty and violence, the neighborhood has several very active recreation centers that provide unique opportunities for fathers and children to engage in activities both together and separately, including boxing classes, club football teams, dance classes, and basketball leagues. Access to these activities can impact fathering behavior as well as perceptions of the community and adds complexity to the narrative of Black fatherhood in a neighborhood that is structurally disadvantaged yet rich in extracurriculars.
While the fathers were not required to have a history of criminal legal involvement to participate, because of the intersection of race, place, and gender, 90% of the total sample (n = 50), and 100% of the subsample in the current study had an arrest record. The subsample for the current study (n = 22) is limited to participants who were incarcerated for a period of their children's lives. The subsample participants had an average of 1.96 children (SD = 1.4), and the average child age was 8.8 (SD = 3.84) at the time of the interview.
Of the 22 fathers in the subsample used for the current study, 14 were recruited through posted flyers in local businesses or by approaching men in the community, discussing the purpose of the research, and garnering interest. Eight were recruited through referrals from other participants who received a $10 Visa gift card once their referral completed the first phase of the study. Respondents received a $40 Visa gift card upon completing their interview.
The audio-recorded interviews took place in a private room in a local office building during the day or a private room in the local recreation center in the evening. The initial interview typically lasted about 2 h and unpacked themes around fatherhood and the impact of the criminal justice system on both fatherhood and the community. The semi-structured interview protocol was guided by McAdams's (1990, 1993) concept of identity as “life story,” and included open-ended questions on critical incidents throughout the life course, role models, and ecological contexts. During the interviews, I was intentional and transparent in communicating my positionality as a white middle-class woman. I explained my desire to learn from participants’ stories and discussed how these stories would be presented to inform policy change.
Data analysis
Once all interviews were completed, I outsourced the anonymized audio for transcription, checked the completed transcripts against the audio upon receipt, and uploaded the finalized transcripts into ATLAS.ti, a qualitative analysis software used for data management, organization, and coding. I began my analysis with line-by-line inductive open coding. This process included summarizing blocks of text with either one word or a verbatim sentence from the text (Thornberg & Charmaz, 2014). After analyzing the first 20 transcripts in this manner, 750 of these sublevel summary codes emerged, what I term, “microcodes.”
To create main level codes, I grouped the 750 microcodes into seven major themes, including “police” and “fatherhood.” Focusing on one theme at a time, I parsed each major theme-group of microcodes into seven main codes. For example, the major theme “police” was parsed into main codes “negative police perceptions,” “positive police perceptions,” “police interaction,” “police race,” “police interaction,” “police needs,” and “taught messages about police.” This process of disentangling each theme resulted in a total of 49 main codes.
For each of the 49 main codes, I created a reference sheet which included the affiliated microcodes (about 11 per main code). I referenced these sheets when creating the code book in ATLAS.ti, which included the main code name and definition. In ATLAS.ti, I was able to nest the affiliated microcodes within each main code so that I could continue coding at the microcode level while simultaneously attaching quotations to main codes.
To strengthen the reliability of my analysis, I engaged in four coding comparison exercises with an objective researcher (Hruschka et al., 2004). Drawing from multiple transcripts and interview topics, I specified which segments we would separately code at the main level. Once we both completed the exercise, we compared our coding. If we had less than 80% agreement, I would make any necessary changes to the code book, either narrowing or broadening the definitions. With the revised code book at hand, we would recode the same text segments to reach at least 80% agreement.
The current study is informed by quotes coded under the main code Criminal Legal System Impact on Fatherhood, Prison Impact on Children, and Influence on Fathers. As I was coding, I repeatedly saw the concept of time raised by the fathers. In fact, the microcode parental incarceration is time you can't get back with kids was cited over 40 times throughout the transcripts and being there was cited over 80 times. Through axial coding exercises (Williams & Moser, 2019), I found that the same men who were discussing the importance of “being there” were also those who lamented their own father's absence during their formative years and had often spent a period of their own life in prison. These associations guide the presentation of data below.
Findings
Participants were born and raised in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a time characterized, in part, by a crack cocaine epidemic, racialized war on drugs, increase in violent crime, punitive sentencing reforms, and increased use of incarceration (Farber & Western, 2001; Venkatesh & Levitt, 2000; Western & Wildeman, 2009). These ecological conditions resulted in an expected 25% incarceration rate for Black men by the age of 35 (Bonczar & Beck, 1997), and deeply affected participants’ upbringing. Many of the participants’ fathers were either in prison or addicted to drugs during the participants’ formative years. As Bey (all participants are referred to using pseudonyms), explained, “Everybody's dad was locked up or he was high…it was like locked up, dead, high, dad. So out of four men, one of them was a pop.” Death, drugs, and prison were described by most of the participants as the lead reasons for paternal absence in their youth. Gibril, a participant whose father died of a drug overdose, stated, “Either [fathers] was on drugs, selling drugs and got locked up, or selling drugs and got killed.”
These contextualized and personal experiences of paternal absence directly informed how participants conceptualized fatherhood. When asked what it meant to be a father, most participants replied, “being there.” This section explores participants’ relationships with their fathers growing up, how these experiences shaped their valuation of time, and how the monopolization of time by the carceral system unavoidably quashes paternal fulfillment.
Regarding time
The influence of unbalanced withdrawals. Although some of the participants acknowledged the larger context of their fathers’ absence, the hurt from their experiences with unbalanced temporal withdrawals remained. Ryun, born in 1985, expressed this hurt to his father, I told [my father] one day, ‘I learned a lot from you.’ He was like, ‘what do you mean by that?’ I said, ‘everything you didn't do, I do.’ He got a little emotional about it. I'm like ‘I really mean it, the shit I had to go through, it was crazy. I had a step-pop, that nigga was abusive. He used to whoop my ass for nothing. I had done been put in the hospital and all that. Watch my mom get put in the hospital, all types of shit.’ I was mad at [my father] for a long time, but like I said, a lot of pops were on drugs or was into the streets. So, I learned as I got older, it wasn't his fault. It was his addiction that was… They hid it from me that my pop was on drugs…But I didn't hold it against him. I told him, ‘Everything you didn't do, I knew to do so that my son would never go through that.’
Like Ryun, most participants described how experiencing unbalanced withdraws influenced their valuation of time. In response to being asked whether he felt as though fathering had changed over time, Yusuf exclaimed, “Yes! I believe our generation, from the eighties on up, has very much stepped up to the plate and is trying to change this perception of the Black father.” Aquil similarly explained, “It's just a new time. I know my father wasn't around for me, and I'm pretty sure his dad wasn't around, but now that I see how it was, I want to be better. I want to be different.”
When asked whether his father was around when he was coming of age, Joel responded, “No. That's one of the main reasons that I'm in my daughter life so much, because I didn't have that growing up. And I see how much that affected me growing up, so I try to be the best that I can for my child.” Hasan similarly explained, We try to make the different change to be around them when we do make that decision to have kids and stuff…Instead of being like we got treated, like our fathers be rolling stones and going out and doing whatever, running around, leaving us with our mom. Yeah, I want to be different, want to be around and actually doing stuff positive and being the impact on my kid.
Research often attributes fathers’ growing proclivity for emotional involvement to shifting gender roles due to the women's empowerment movement and an increasingly competitive and discriminatory job market that inhibits fathers from fulfilling their provider role (LaRossa, 1995; Pager, 2003). However, for the current study's participants, maintaining some sense of familial importance in the face of structural barriers was not the lead incentive for caregiving. Rather, participants were largely motivated by a desire to give their children the temporal investment they yearned for as kids but were denied due, in large part, to racist policies and practices that neglected, hyper-surveilled, and disappeared their fathers (Roy & Lucas, 2006).
Defining temporal deposits. Temporal deposits were seen by many to produce positive child outcomes. Chad explained, [Fathers] didn't put the time in…You would know because the cars would be gone all day, they don't come until nighttime. And then early in the morning they gone again…It'll change your kid by just being around. It can be eight hours of the day before you go to work. As long as you get eight hours with them, it means something. These guys were gone all the time.
Henry described how his father attempted to balance the temporal debt accrued through his frequent stays in jail, Every time he was around, he participated in our life… I’m not going to lie, my dad was really like in the streets heavy-selling drugs, doing all types of stuff to make sure we ate…Even through living like that, he always tried to show us different, like he always had us in programs. I was in boxing. I was playing basketball, PAL league, he had me in everything, swim team, he just wanted me to do different.
The men further dimensionalized the concept of temporal debt by discussing how passive time in one another's presence does not count as a temporal deposit. Rather, quality time was seen as the only valuable temporal currency. Josiah described, “As far as me saying I wasn't paid attention, like what I do with my kids, work out with them and everything, I didn't have that with my dad. It was more so just he come home, and he just lay back and chill and I just do everything around the house and stuff like that.” Another participant, Zakiah, mentioned how he lived with his father for a period of his childhood. When I asked how that experience was, he responded, “It was alright. He didn’t really give me any guidance or anything. It was like we were just roommates. It was just like we were there.” For the participants, temporal debt accumulates even if chronological time is shared between the father and child; kairological moments were seen as the only real counterbalance to temporal debt. In other words, the participants placed value not on whether time was shared, but how it was shared (McKay, Comfort, Lindquist, & Bir, 2019).
Temporal deposits were also described by the men as far more valuable than monetary deposits. When describing his father, Amir became emotional, I know who he was, but I didn't really ‘know him know him.’ I didn't know what he liked or where my dad goes when he's not with my mom. I didn't know none of that. I only know that my dad used to pull up in different luxury cars at a time. He would drop some money off to me and say, ‘Are you okay?’ ‘Yeah, I'm ok,’ and he'll pull off. I don't want your money. I don't want your money. I don't want none of them cars you’re driving around. I don't want none of them fancy clothes that you be buying. I don't want none of that stuff. I want my dad! I want to talk to my dad.
Asynchrony and the carceral state
The intersection of the participants’ race, place, and gender contributed to persistent police hypersurveillance, employer discrimination, and a lack of educational opportunities and resources (Henson, 2022). Therefore, despite being incentivized to “be there” for their children, these contextual factors, and participants’ actions, led all the fathers in the current sample to be incarcerated for a period of their children's lives.
Previous studies examining the impact of paternal incarceration have focused on barriers to engagement, including physical distance, limited visitation, and maternal gatekeeping (Fagan & Barnett, 2003; Nurse, 2002). Studies have also explored how carcerality can lead to fathers’ feelings of hopelessness, loss of control, and self-criticism due to their inability to be a present figure or role model in their children's lives (Arditti, Smock, & Parkman, 2005; Fowler et al., 2017). While there may be some options for those incarcerated to connect with their children through letters, calls, and visits, participants described these options as constricted and inconsistently available. The participants also explained how, particularly during visits, correctional staff would interfere with bonding activities and actions. For example, during a visit, a correctional officer demanded that Bryce hand his son over to the child's mom when the child started fussing. He asked the correctional officer, “So, I can't even be a father to my son?” To which the correctional officer replied “No, you’re an inmate.” Beyond the barriers identified by prior research, participants of the current study identified the inability to make temporal deposits as the primary carceral harm for both the father and child.
When asked whether prison had an impact on fatherhood, Renald replied, “you're missing a lot of quality time with your child.” Larry responded similarly, “you're missing time, you're missing moments.” James, too, “It's time missing. Every second counts…Time missed is time missed, you can't do nothing.” And Kwame, “Time away…Time you can't get back…Time is undefeated. I look at my kids, I see time. I see how time still moves forward.”
Kwame noted the powerlessness incarcerated fathers have to time's boundless motion. Even though the father's serve and experience their own time in prison, the time shared with their children was categorically different and perceived as lost. EJ explained, “the biggest thing you can rob is somebody's time.” When speaking about the struggles he had as an incarcerated father, Kareem stated, “I just wanted to give her a hug and kiss and say ‘Hi, I miss you.’ Even if you just give me one minute, I'll be fine with it because I know there's a lot in that one minute. That means a lot to me.” While one minute of objective chronological time, or chronos, represents 60 s, 60000 milliseconds, Kareem explained how one minute of subjective metaphysical time, or kairos, represents an opportunity for a child to be comforted, a father to feel fulfilled, and a moment of physical affection. Objectively, one minute is just a short period of time that repeats consecutively; subjectively, one minute represents an irreplaceable moment in which a father can build intimacy with his child.
Prison-based time and community-based time persist at seemingly different speeds. Darius described how a prison sentence affects the pace of the relationship between an incarcerated father and his child, “It slows it all the way down because you can't be there to do and see what they're doing and give them the advice they need when they need it. There's no way you can do that over no phone, it's not going to work.” Both Darius's father and mother were incarcerated for most of Darius's life. Darius was incarcerated for two years of his children's lives, and, at the time of his interview, Darius's fourteen-year-old son was in juvenile placement. The natural cadence of many of Darius's familial relationships had been disrupted by the criminal legal system. He described how, without the ability to be together, relationships are unable to grow together. Later in our interview, Darius implicated the asynchrony he experienced when his father was in prison as one of the reasons he himself landed in prison and saw asynchrony as a contributing factor his son's justice-involvement.
Aggravating asynchrony. The impact of temporal debt was seen as exacerbated by length of carceral time and developmental stage of absence (McKay et al., 2019). With knowledge of how his two-year incarceration affected his daughter, Kareem stated with conviction, “[Going to prison] definitely changes a relationship.” He paused, “depending on how much time you got.” When I asked Joel whether he thinks being incarcerated affects a man's relationship with his child, he responded, Yes, because it depends on the circumstance. Because you could get arrested for a long period of time and not being in your child's life. And I think the younger stages of the child is the most important stages where you need to be in a child's life.. their father not being in their life for a period of time, it affects the child. The child feels it.
The impact of the unique context of the carceral period was mentioned by Josiah as well, If your kid is thirteen, and you got to do three and a half years, and by the time you come home he's seventeen, those teenage years the most important years. He can get caught up in the streets real fast… He coming home, he probably on the corner grinding and hustling for some other dude and you telling him not to do this, but he not listening to nothing you say. ‘Dad, you've been gone for three and a half years. You don't know what I've been going through while you was gone. You don't know what mommy going through. I got to do this, I got to do that.’
Research on paternal incarceration often views the event as dichotomous (i.e., did the child experience paternal incarceration, yes or no?). Kareem, Josiah, and Joel complicate this perspective by discussing the importance of the context surrounding the carceral experience. Their hypotheses are supported by recent studies that found children who experienced longer, and more frequent paternal incarceration were more likely to fail elementary school exams, drop out of high school, and be convicted of a crime than children who experienced shorter, less frequent paternal incarceration, or no paternal incarceration at all (Andersen, 2016; Yoder, Brisson, & Lopez, 2016). In other words, the duration and frequency of temporal withdrawals significantly impact how the child's time is experienced and saturated in the community.
The duration and frequency of temporal debt not only impact the relationship during the period of confinement, but also have on impact on the reintegration process. Bey described how prison-induced asynchrony can cause relational difficulties upon release. When asked about the impact of paternal incarceration, Bey replied, It's going to impact it in some way, shape, form, or fashion but it depends on how bad. It depends on how old the kid is, it depends on how long you've got to do. And it depends on who got him when you away and how life is when you're away. If life's real hard when you're away, you're going to have a lot to fix. If life ain't that hard when you away, then you might come back to a situation where you have to get order back restored because the kid will feel as though he got a little ground to resist because you wasn't there for whatever reason.
Cameron similarly explained, “now I feel like I’m chasing for [his son's] time.” When Cameron was first incarcerated, his son was only four years old, his daughter, two years old, and his children's mother was pregnant with their second daughter. Cameron was incarcerated for nearly a decade, and, because he was removed during some of his children's most formative years, he described feeling “out the loop” upon his reentry. Cameron spoke about having trouble relating to and connecting with his children, “it hurt at one point…like damn, now they came into they own little self, they own little personalities, they own little swag as you want to call it… now it be like, ‘I don't got time dad.’”
Cameron returned home only six months prior to our interview in 2018 and described his son as heavily invested in video games. However, because of the inability to “keep up with the times” while in prison, he lamented not knowing how to play and therefore connect with his son. Cameron felt not only out of sync with the development of his children, but also the development of technology, which, he felt, furthered the distance between him and his children.
The requirement of making chronological deposits to the state as a mechanism for accountability prohibited fathers from making kairological deposits with their family. With lengthy sentences during their children's formative years, fathers were so indebted to the familial temporal account, that, upon their reentry, they felt they were constantly “chasing,” yet never quite achieving, balance.
Discussion
A breadth of research has examined the financial implications of carcerality, and the oppressive amount of financial debt previously incarcerated individuals and their families are subjected to (Haney, 2018; Montes et al., 2021). The concept of temporal debt, particularly within the context of fatherhood, however, has remained unexplored until now. The fathers described how time is a valuable currency; because of personal experiences with their disappeared fathers, participants saw paternal investment and temporal investment as synonymous. Shared time with their children represented opportunities for growth, intimacy, protection, and joy. While many fathers adapt to the prison environment and learn how to parent through phone calls, letters, and prison visits, the men described how carceral limitations deeply hinder the amount and quality of temporal deposits.
Findings unveil several tenets of temporal debt including: (1) temporal deposits are only of value if they involve quality time, (2) temporal deposits must be consistent and frequent to avoid asynchrony, (3) temporal debt cannot be counterbalanced by financial investment, (4) the impact of temporal debt is influenced by the length of the overdraft period, and (5) the impact of temporal debt is influenced by the child's developmental stage during the overdraft period. Carceral punishment was seen by the fathers as a damaging and unjust overdraft from their temporal budget. Although participants described attempting to invest more time in their children upon release, as Chris stated, there is no making up time; once “robbed,” time cannot be recreated.
Future research directions
The concept of temporal robbery that several of the participants raise implies that the carceral state is unlawfully taking time from incarcerated fathers, which brings up questions about the participants’ perceptions of system legitimacy. Future research should draw on the temporal debt framework while examining the concept of system legitimacy and desert. Do those who admit to causing harm or who have been harmed view temporal debt as a form of justice? How does the nature of carcerality and its inherent temporal debt structure impact perceptions of system legitimacy? In addition, research should examine the long-term impact of temporal debt on family relationships following the carceral period. While some of the participants described the permanence of temporal debt, it would be interesting to see if, over time, temporal debt can shrink with frequent deposits, and if so, what kind of deposits allow it to diminish.
Because the narratives of caregivers and mothers were beyond the scope of the current study, it will also be important to examine the relationships mothers and caregivers have with temporal debt and whether a father's temporal debt influences the mother's own temporal debt by forcing more time away from the home to support the family due to the absence of the second parent's income, etc.
Lastly, the current study lacks important data on the type of facility the father was incarcerated within, the age of the child during the father's period of incarceration, and the number of years the father was incarcerated during the child's life. To better support some of the claims made by participants about the impact of carceral length and the child's developmental state during the prison term, future studies should examine whether age of child, length of incarceration, and facility type alter the notion and impact of temporal debt.
Policy implications
For some families, the removal of a father can reduce harm, but this tends to be a small percentage (Wakefield & Wildeman, 2014). For the majority, identifying ways to cultivate or maintain consistent paternal bonds can reduce trauma and inequality, and increase health and prosperity (Graves et al., 2007; Palkovitz et al., 2001; Wakefield & Wildeman, 2014). With this in mind, the current study's findings guide two levels of policy implications: (1) harm reductionist, and (2) abolitionist.
Harm reductionist efforts include enhanced visitation, limiting the spatial distance between the carceral location and the home address of the incarcerated individual, and limiting sentence lengths. The literature shows that visitation can lessen the “pains of imprisonment,” lower re-incarceration, and assuage children's anxieties and feelings of abandonment (Bales & Mears, 2008; Casey-Acevedo & Bakken, 2002; Duwe & Clark, 2011; Henson, 2020; Johnston, 1995; Mears et al., 2012; Poehlmann et al., 2010; Sykes, 1958; Visher, 2011). Traditional visits, however, because of their punitive setting and physical restrictions, can be stressful, dehumanizing, and create feelings of secondary prisonization for children (Christian, 2005; Codd, 2007; Comfort, 2003; Henson, 2020; Poehlmann et al., 2010). Therefore, enhanced visitation that allows for play, touch, and extended periods of quality time is particularly important (Henson, 2018). Programs that facilitate activities between the fathers and children, such as yoga, sports, interactive and educational games, art projects, and even family therapy, allow fathers to engage in and create synchronous moments within the confines of the offending space that typically robs fathers of that ability.
Many families who have a loved one in prison, however, do not have the means to travel to the prison for visits. Sixty-two percent of parents in state correctional facilities and 84% of parents in federal facilities are incarcerated more than 100 miles from their families and the overall cost of prison visitation for family members is found be to an average minimum of $80 per trip (Boudin, Stutz, & Littman, 2012; Christian, 2005). Therefore, it is necessary for the prison to provide transportation to families free of charge to maintain and strengthen important familial bonds.
Considering distance, as well as sentence length, criminologist Michael Tonry recently published a meta-analysis covering the last fifty years of American sentencing reform and concluded that community correctional programs can “reduce re-offending, improve offenders’ and their families’ lives, and compared with imprisonment reduce public expenditure” (2019, p.18). He explained, For offenders for whom supervision makes sense, well-managed, well targeted, and adequately funded community programs can reduce reoffending… Almost all prisons are resource-poor and unable to provide adequate drug, mental health, and other treatment, vocational training, and education programs that can help prisoners lead law-abiding lives later on. Imprisonment worsens prisoners’ physical and mental health and shortens their life expectancies. The resulting stigma and collateral legal consequences foreclose opportunities and access to resources that make their later lives more difficult, their employment prospects worse, and their lifetime earnings less. Imprisonment damages and often impoverishes prisoners’ families and children (p.19).
While these attempts at harm reduction may have positive impacts, it is also important to consider and strive for a society free of prisons and adversarial judicial processes that do not directly address harm or incentivize healing or change. The current study illuminates the complexity of individuals’ identities, even for those in prison who are so often limited to their master status of “inmate,” but who still hold desires to be active fathers.
The very nature of prison, through its dehumanization, distance, and stigma, prohibits fathers from making temporal deposits and fulfilling their paternal role as an active and present source of support, protection, and love. Therefore, creativity is imperative in determining how to both hold individuals accountable and work towards healing and transformation for all parties involved in the incidents of harm. This determination must also consider the impact of the mode of holding accountability on the loved ones and communities of those implicated. In addition, we must challenge classifications of criminality and how these definitions and enforcement tactics contribute to power structures in America that lead to harmful generational temporal debt that disconnects families and quashes fatherhood.
An important and often overlooked point in the conversation around abolition, however, is that prison can serve as a refuge from the marginalization, hostility, and vulnerability that exists in some individuals’ communities (Bucerius, Haggerty, & Dunford, 2021; Maier & Ricciardelli, 2022). In fact, some of the participants of the current study felt this way. One participant explained how he went to jail for something he did not do; however, he saw the eighteen-month prison sentence as a “blessing.” He stated, “I may not have done that, but I was breaking the law every day, and anything could have happened. I feel like it kind of saved me. To be who I am today, I'd risk going through whatever I went through all over again because today, I'm a totally different person, and my kids can be proud.” So, when recommending a decreased use of prison or the ultimate abolition of prison, it is important to consider how to decrease marginality and thus the need for refuge. There must be investment in resources and services that empower communities and create opportunities for self-exploration, growth, and paternal engagement, which will ultimately increase public safety and render prisons, and the resultant bankruptcy of fatherhood, obsolete.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
