Actionable Insight from Unprecedented Study on Families Affected by Incarceration Available in New Book

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. — A new book by RTI International researchers based on a 10-year study sheds rich new light on the parenting and intimate relationships of justice-involved men, challenging long-standing boundaries between research on incarceration and on the well-being of low-income families.

The book, titled Holding On: Family and Fatherhood during Incarceration and Reentry, was written by Tasseli McKay, Megan Comfort, Christine Lindquist and Anupa Bir. It was published by the University of California Press this summer.

“We hope Holding On can help to illuminate the urgent research and policy issues  surrounding our current system of incarceration with new insights on how imprisonment can damage relationships — and ways that damage could be prevented or mitigated,” said McKay, a social science researcher in RTI’s Division for Applied Justice Research. “We encountered many compelling stories over the course of this study that we were able to include in Holding On.”

Holding On has been well received. Sara Wakefield, coauthor of Children of the Prison Boom, called Holding On a “triumph” and “a must-read for policy makers, a gift for scholars of incarceration and the family, and an exemplar of the ambitious, multi-method, and humanizing analysis we desperately need in an era of criminal justice reform.”

Holding On can be purchased on the UC Press website in hardcover, paperback and eBook formats.

Related Experts

Presenter

Tasseli McKay

Expertise

Family relationships during incarceration and reentry from prison

Intimate partner violence among marginalized populations

Health coverage and access to care for justice-involved persons

Presenter

Anupa Bir

Expertise

Evaluation methods

Health care innovation

Child well-being

Family well-being

Corrections

Presenter

Christine H. Lindquist

Expertise

Prisoner reentry

Families and incarceration

Intimate partner violence and sexual violence