What Do You Mean My Child Is in Custody? A Qualitative Study of Parental Response to the Detention of Their Child

This qualitative study involved in-depth interviews with 11 parents whose children had been taken into custody. The initial reactions and responses of the parents to the detention of their children were examined, as well as these parents' thoughts and feelings about theprocess and their involvement in the juvenile justice system. The following major themes emerged from the data analysis: (a) feeling frustrated and confused, (b) a perception of the system as being fair, (c) the juvenile system assuming a parental role, and (d) the influence of detention on family dynamics. Findings highlight the personal experiences of the parents as they attempted to navigate the juvenile justice system.     

The Ethics of the Child Custody Process: Are the American Law Institute’s Guidelines the Answer?

Our principal ethical concern is that children have greatly differing opportunities to have their developmental needs addressed in the custody process. We illustrate this variation with example cases in five different adult contexts: custodial parent, relocates; natural father disputes an adoption; gay parents break up; “psychological parents” come forward to claim custody or visitation; and the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 is invoked and may disrupt a placement. We acknowledge and then evaluate in relation to our cases, the recent guidelines for custody issued by the American Law Institute (Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution: Analysis and Recommendations, 2002). Our recommendations for an ethical process include making the child a legal player.Eleanor Willemsen, Rebecca Andrews and Bethany Karlin are affiliated with Department of Psychology, Santa Clara University. Rebecca Andrews is now at Syracuse University Law School.Address correspondence to Eleanor Willemsen, Department of Psychology, Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA 95053; e-mail: ewillemsen @scu.edu. This research was supported by a grant from the Bannan Center for Jesuit Education of Santa Clara University. We wish to acknowledge Bree Nakashima for her assistance with our legal research.     

What’s a Parent to Do? How Parents Respond to Notification of a Child’s Police Detention

The current qualitative study involved in-depth semistructured interviews with parents whose children had been taken into custody. Their initial emotional reactions, cognitive processing, and behavioral responses to their child’s detention were examined. Five themes emerged from the data: (1) Parents try to defer immediate interactions with the child rather than react out of emotion; (2) Parents feel anger toward their child, but disappointment and shock are more strongly expressed emotional responses; (3) Parents do not accept the behavior but do not reject their child; (4) Police behaviors communicate the seriousness of the act; and (5) The entire family suffers consequences from the child’s act. Findings highlight the experiences of the parents as they interacted with the juvenile justice system.     

Is It the Government’s Responsibility to Reduce Income Inequality? An Age-Period-Cohort Analysis of Public Opinion toward Redistributive Policy in the United States, 1978 to 2016

This study examines age, period, and cohort (APC) effects on changing opinions among the American public toward the federal government’s responsibility for income redistribution. More specifically, we use the hierarchical age–period–cohort (HAPC) model to analyze time periods and birth cohorts as contextual variables and age as an individual-level variable to address the identification problem inherent in APC analysis. Our results show that while cohort effects on public opinion toward redistributive policy exist, such effects are explained by individual-level compositional differences among cohorts, and while period effects are evident, particular trends in that regard are difficult to discern. What our results make abundantly clear, however, is the significant impact of age on opinions toward redistributive policy. As people age, they become significantly less supportive of federal redistribution policies, a relationship that is robust in the presence of cohort and period effects as well as a full range of controls. In the context of a rapidly aging population, the implication is that more conservative policy preferences linked to older age provide little reason to believe that mass support for government redistribution is in the offing.