Father To Death Row Essay

After reading two articles focusing on the families of death row inmates, the next article Children of the Condemned: Grieving the Loss of a Father to Death Row focuses on the children affected by having a father on death row. Beck and Jones (2008) examined the effects of a death sentence on children of the condemned. Additionally, the article discusses the concept of disenfranchised grief and nonfinite loss that form the children 's grief process. Beck and Jones (2008) conducted their study by interviewing nineteen children of death row inmates, through lawyers and having parental consent. The data from Beck and Jones (2008) study showed “The most prevalent theme was the children’s discussion of the importance of having their parent in their

In the article, the authors argue “these children are at greater risk for emotional and behavioral problems than other children, and that their household income and stability is often adversely affected by parental incarceration” (Beck & Jones, 2008, p. 128). Undoubtedly, children are greatly affected by a parent being put to death by the state and their community supporting that execution. Intense media attention during the execution date increases pain and anxiety. Following this further, the authors make the argument “Children of incarcerated parents are five times more likely to be incarcerated than children whose parent was not incarcerated” (Beck & Jones, 2008, p. 192-193). Consequently, this study conducted shows that children of incarcerated parents needs assistance with dealing with grief through counseling or other type of programming. However, children have different coping mechanisms when dealing with their loss of a parent who was on death row. For instance, some children would deny it and others would fight their father 's’ execution. Additionally, the parents encouraged their children to follow their hopes and dreams despite their father’s death