Reports & Publications

This article presents a study on the "invisible victims" or children of incarcerated parents and how this experience affects them.

New Study on “Invisible Victims” of Incarceration: Children

by William M. DiMascio
Executive Director, The Pennsylvania Prison Society

What is done to children, they will do to society.
—Karl A. Menninger, American Psychiatrist (1893-1990)

The report, compiled by Hannah Klein with support from Stoneleigh Fellow Gregory Volz, is an overview of youth courts in Pennsylvania, including history, structure, types of offenses, and disposition rendered in each of the active youth courts as of December 2011.  Read the report here.

Stoneleigh Fellow Kathleen Creamer talks about the struggles that families endure during incarceration and as parents attempt to reassume the role of primary caretakers.  The challenges are even more daunting when the parent has a child in foster care. Children are often denied much-needed contact from their incarcerated parents and caregivers lack adequate financial and social support during parental incarceration.

Advancement Project and its partner Power U Center for Social Change released a first-of-its-kind national “graphic report,” <

Joslyn Young asked what can be learned from students’ interest in technology and communication to enhance their literacy skills and improve their education.   Read about the results of Joslyn's year-long fellowship at Research for Action studying the role of out-of-school media literacy and its effect on learning.

A guidebook prepared by the American Bar Association with support from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention  to help community leaders decide on what cases to accept and reject when starting a new youth court or expanding an existing one.   Read the complete document here.

The inaugural issue of the Philadelphia Bar Association Women in the Profession Newsletter, July 2011, featured an article by Kathleen Creamer on theHealthy Birth for Incarcerated Women  Act.  This legislation makes Pennsylvania the 10th state to outlaw the risky and inhumane practice of shackling incarcerated women during childbirth.  Read the complete article here.

"While boys and young men experience worse health outcomes, our research shows that health disparities are especially pronounced for African-American and latino boys and young men.  Negative health outcomes for African-American and Latino boys and yound men are a result of growing up in neighborhood of concentrated disadvantage, places that are more likely to put boys and young men directly in harm's way and reinforce harmful behavior." 

Article by Theodore Corbin, et.al. featured in Changing Places, published by the Berkeley Law Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity in 2005, discusses the trauma-informed approached to the health of boys and men of color.  Read the entile article here.

2011 Amendments to the Rules of Juvenile Court Procedure, Dependency Matters, Chapter 11.  Read the amendments here.