When a prisoner is locked up, the world he leaves behind does not stand still. Nor does his family. During the prisoner’s absence, roles shift, children grow, and emotional and financial hardships are endured. Even when the sentence ends, the prisoner and his family can never go back to the status quo that existed before prison, no matter how much they would like to. They must negotiate a new family dynamic that takes these changes into account.
Before joining the staff of Prison Fellowship®, Pat Nolan spent over two years in federal prison. Pat’s wife, Gail, and their three children came as often as they could. During one family visit, their second daughter asked Pat, who had grown grayer behind bars, “Daddy, when you come home, will your hair turn dark again?”
When a prisoner is locked up, the world he leaves behind does not stand still. Nor does his family. During the prisoner’s absence, roles shift, children grow, and emotional and financial hardships are endured. Even when the sentence ends, the prisoner and his family can never go back to the status quo that existed before prison, no matter how much they would like to. They must negotiate a new family dynamic that takes these changes into account.
Despite the enormity of these challenges, few resources exist to help families move on after incarceration. One notable exception is Coming Home! A Guide for Receiving a Loved One Back from Prison or Jail, by ex-prisoner Lennie Spitale and Dr. Karen K. Swanson, director of the Institute for Prison Ministries at Wheaton College.
The Influence of Incarceration
“To be free and to be with the people we love are the two greatest longings of those in prison,” says Spitale, speaking from his own experience. But the approach of those long-desired objectives—freedom and family—can obscure the serious challenges waiting outside the gate.
As the book explains, prisoners and their families need to realize that prison has a distinct culture, and prisoners will need time to adjust to the outside world, just as they once had to adjust to a prison environment. The prisoner and his family should be prepared for the prisoner to be emotionally detached, suspicious, or self-conscious, along with a host of other survival mechanisms that may follow him outside the razor wire.
The key, says Coming Home, is to develop realistic expectations and work patiently through the adjustment period. The book also offers testimonials, stories, and practical action points to help prisoners and their families launch successfully into the reentry phase.
Coming to Terms with Anxiety
Reentry is a multi-faceted emotional experience for the prisoner and his family. Appropriately, Coming Home sets out to deal with anxiety, anger, guilt, loneliness, and other heart-level heavyweights that accompany a prisoner’s release. It does so with psychological depth, but also with plenty of practical suggestions.
Coming Home lists the five most common fears a reintegrating family will face:
- Fear of changes to schedules, finances, childrearing, and leadership roles that a prisoner’s return will entail
- Fear that not enough will change, and that promises of a new, different life will fall flat as the prisoner returns to his old ways
- Fear that old criminal associates will derail the prisoner’s intentions to do right
- Fear that the prisoner will succumb to addictions
- Fear that the prisoner—if convicted of a violent or frightening crime—will re-offend in the same way
While none of these anxieties has a simple solution, Coming Home advocates a careful blend of time, clear communication, and enforced boundaries in all areas. It also offers a variety of useful tactics for dealing with each particular anxiety.
Children Adjust Differently
Coming Home addresses other important topics, including how to build personal responsibility, and how to regain the trust of loved ones. But one of its most important chapters covers the unique—and often overlooked—needs of children whose parents return after a long absence.
Families deal with a parent’s incarceration in different ways. Some families may try to hide the incarceration, saying that the parent is “away” at school or on business, or even dead. Others may swing in another direction, verbally blaming the incarcerated parent for all the family’s current troubles, which may include shame, instability, and a reduced standard of living.
However the family has coped, a parent’s return has profound emotional implications for the child. A child’s reaction to parental reentry has several common stages:
- The honeymoon phase. Eager for everything to work out, children are cooperative and obedient, but anxiety can lie under the surface.
- Suspicion. As they grow more comfortable, children will allow some of their more negative emotions to rise to the surface. They will question the returning parent’s position and permanence within the household.
- Resistance. Children may go through a period of defiance, challenging the returning parent’s authority and love with rebellious behavior.
- Expressing or withholding feelings. Children may ask whether it is acceptable to vent their emotions, or whether they need to hide their true feelings about the turmoil going on in their home.
To help the child cope, families can take important steps, such as: keeping an appropriate line of communication open between the child and the incarcerated parent; involving the child in discussions about upcoming changes; and enlisting the aid and understanding of other important, supportive adults in the child’s life, like educators, school counselors, coaches, and Sunday school teachers.
The “Ultimate Solution” Ties All Things Together
The central principles of Coming Home, based on a blend of common sense, psychological research, and the authors’ own experiences, will apply to any prisoner or family, whether they find themselves skeptics, seekers, or fervent believers in Christ. But, in a closing chapter, Spitale lays out the story of his own transformation, and urges prisoners and their families to put Christ—the “ultimate solution”—at the center of their own plans for reentry.
A comprehensive yet brief primer, Coming Home directs itself specifically to a prisoner’s loved ones, but it contains useful insights for anyone seeking to minister effectively to short-timers and their families. Its detailed action points, as well a helpful communication checklist and a suggested family covenant, make it less of a treatise on family reintegration, and more of a tactical manual for those down in the trenches.
Priced at $4.95, Coming Home is available for purchase through the website of the Institute for Prison Ministries at Wheaton College.