There are many limitations in interpreting the study's findings. First, participants were all selected through the Krits foundation and had all participated in programs or family camps or (internet) support groups for children of prisoners. They all had a vast knowledge of possible interventions and access to rehabilitations for families of the incarcerated, which is critical to note as it may suggest that this study's sample was slightly low risk compared to the general population of children
with incarcerated parents. Second, all participants were adolescent girls and thus possible differences in how gender may affect experiences of parental incarceration are not included. In addition, the current study examined only experiences of paternal incarceration. Previous studies have assessed that children's adjustment is associated with the gender of the incarcerated parent (Aaron & Dallaire 2010, 1481). For example, children with incarcerated mothers have been found to be at a greater risk for delinquency and incarceration in adulthood than children with incarcerated fathers (Dallaire 2007, 451). One interpretation of this concerns the stability in caregiver and caregiving related situations. Research has shown that when a father is incarcerated, children are likely to be in their biological mother's care (Mumola 2000; Poehlmann 2005; Dallaire 2007). But when a mother is incarcerated, children are more likely to be placed into the care of their mother's family because mothers are often the primary caregivers prior to their incarceration (Mumola 2000).
Thus, maternal incarceration may affect children differently due to unstable caregiving or children being displaced from their homes. Third, all adolescents in this study were white and ethnically Finnish. This affects how the study's findings should be interpreted. Wildeman (2009, 277) for example, pointed out that social inequality among children should be considered if parental incarceration disproportionately touches the lives of minority children or those from low income single-parent families. In the current study no information about the families' economic situations or the parents' level of education were gathered. In addition, I found no systematic information on whether parental incarceration affects minorities differently in Finland.
Although there is evidence that parental incarceration poses a threat for children and their development, many methodological and conceptual challenges exist regarding selection bias in studies (Johnson & Easterling 2012, 342). Without a comparison group the current study fails to determine whether studied effects are due to parental incarceration itself or other adversities in the participants' ecology, such as parental substance abuse, living in a single parent household, or unstable caregiving and home life. Johnson and Easterling (2012, 351) noted that the most common strategy to disentangle these different effects is the use of single or multiple comparison groups paired with statistical controls for background characteristics of for example, the family's financial situation, ethnicity or race, the parents' level of education, and so on. Furthermore, due to the small number of participants in the current study, the findings cannot be generalized. As can be interpreted from the examples of existing studies on children's and adolescents' experiences of parental incarceration (see chapter 2.3), all of them have small samples. This can be argued to affect the reliability of the results; however, they can offer rich data on children's and adolescents' experiences in their own words. This in turn, can help shed light on factors that may alleviate
negative consequences associated with parental incarceration. In addition, small samples may even be an unavoidable characteristic of this demographic. Especially in Finland, where the number of prisoners is considerably smaller than in some other countries, children of prisoners are a difficult demographic to gain information from. Without connections to foundations or organizations that work with families of the incarcerated, it may be fairly challenging to gather data from children of prisoners. Another limitation to the study hence concerns the fact that participants self-selected to be in this study. Kautz (2017, 571) suggested that this may limit the understanding of the phenomenon because only a small portion of the those affected by parental incarceration will choose to participate in studies.
The current study's effort to identify adolescent girls' lived experiences of having an incarcerated father growing up is also its greatest limitation. Future research on the topic of children of prisoners in Finland should define the subject of research with more intention. This study suffers from the lack of clarity in its goal to identify to whole experience of paternal incarceration through adolescent girls' eyes. With the intention to present a descriptive analysis of the data, the study fails to provide an analysis with greater depth in a sociological manner. Hence, the different aspects of the experiences of paternal incarceration stay on a superficial level and cannot reflect the social context in which the phenomenon is experienced. It would be interesting to study different aspects of the experience, such as the influence of parental relationships, social support, and coping mechanisms on how children and adolescents adapt to parental incarceration. Furthermore, implications that girls and boys may experience parental incarceration differently should be explored. Because multiple difficulties exist in gathering information from this population, I suggest approaching organisations and their projects with children or adolescents with incarcerated parents.
There may be opportunities to study how these projects and the activities influence children's and adolescents' experiences of parental incarceration as well.
As this study concerns only paternal incarceration, it is worth mentioning that maternal incarceration is just as fascinating as a research topic. I would expect the experiences of maternal incarceration to be dissimilar to paternal incarceration in terms of how caregiving is organized because mothers are usually children's primary caregivers. Enroos (2015) has studied incarcerated mothers with a child in prison and how family relations, parenthood, and institutional activities are negotiated from different perspectives. Exploring children's and adolescents' experiences of maternal incarceration would offer valuable information on attachment and separation for example.
To conclude, I would like to bring attention back to the participants of this study. My deepest gratitude goes to the girls who were willing to give me their time and tirelessly explain their experiences to me. I am aware that it must not be easy to talk about your childhood experiences with a stranger. It is easy to imagine that the experiences of growing up with an incarcerated father are wholly personal and private. After all, they touch on the subjects of childhood and fathers, both of which many can agree on being sensitive topics. This project has been part of my life for the past year and a half. I have spent many hours thinking over ways to work with the gathered data without disrupting the stories' uniqueness and to find the meanings given to them by the participants. My hope is that I have done enough to bring forth children of incarcerated parents’ unique stories of parental absence due to imprisonment and the challenges that may result from this. In closing, I would like to borrow one child's quote from Smith's article (2015, 167) to address the heart of the issue of paternal incarceration for children:
"I could never get hold of him. He was always the one who had to get hold of me, once every week [on the phone]. Well, that is no father role. There is no one you can go to. It's someone you have to wait to come to you. I don't think that's a father."
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Appendices
Appendix 1. Request for interview
Hei,
Olen sosiologian opiskelija Itä-Suomen yliopistosta. Etsin pro gradu-tutkimukseeni haastateltavaksi nuoria (n. 13-18 v.), joilla on tai on ollut vanhempi suorittamassa vankeusrangaistusta.
Tarkoituksena on saada tietoa nuorten kokemuksista ja kuulla heidän näkemyksensä vanhemman vankeusrangaistuksesta sekä sen mahdollisista vaikutuksista omaan elämään.
Tarkoituksena on saada tietoa nuorten kokemuksista ja kuulla heidän näkemyksensä vanhemman vankeusrangaistuksesta sekä sen mahdollisista vaikutuksista omaan elämään.