SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Forensic Psychiatry
This article is part of the Research TopicWomen Offenders: The Challenge of Evidence-based Practice in Correctional and Forensic Mental Health ServicesView all 6 articles
Parenting Interventions for Incarcerated Mothers
Provisionally accepted
- Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, United States
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
As women constitute the fastest-growing prison population, understanding the effects of incarceration is essential. This poses a significant interest in a subset of women who are also mothers. The mental health challenges faced by incarcerated women are profound and unique compared to those of their male counterparts. Likewise, the mental health challenges of mothers may be viewed as separate and distinct. Thus, these factors may impact the relationships between women and their families. This systematic review was conducted using the PRISMA framework. It examines parenting interventions designed for justice-involved women, particularly incarcerated mothers, and how these programs affect maternal well-being, parenting skills, and family relationships. The electronic databases PsycINFO and PubMed were searched for the systematic review. In phase one, 3,720 articles were extracted. Of these, 1,572 articles were screened for title and abstract irrelevancy. Following screening, 1,209 were removed due to title irrelevance, and 347 were removed for abstract irrelevance. After removing any studies that were not intervention-based, a total of 15 full-text articles remained for screening. In this phase, the articles were reviewed for quality, and six were excluded. Justice-involved mothers face unique challenges that require comprehensive and tailored interventions. These challenges may be best addressed through trauma-informed, family-oriented programming and mental health treatment.
Keywords: Maternal Incarceration1, Family dynamics2, Family Relationships3, ParentingInterventions4, Systematic Review5
Received: 03 Jul 2025; Accepted: 27 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Clark, Lancellotta and Kennedy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Alexis Clark, ac4801@mynsu.nova.edu
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.