Never-Ending Chain of Crime: Defining the Vicious Cycle from Parental Incarceration on Children in Liangshan

Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture is located between latitude 26°03′–29°18′ N and longitude 100°03′–103°52′ in Sichuan, China. It is a region entangled by deep-rooted poverty, elevated crime rates, and educational deficit. This environment has precipitated a severe dilemma wherein a substantial number of Liangshan’s children are at risk of being left behind. Sichuan’s Provincial People’s Court reported that from 2012 to 2016, Sichuan holds a drug-related crime of 29,747 cases, ranked fourth nationally (Chuguang). This critical factor of parental incarceration, predominantly due to drug trafficking offenses, exacerbated the issue of children being left behind in Liangshan. Parental incarceration is an on-going issue across the world. Multiple researchers have consequences of economic hardship, children’s criminal involvement, parent-child detachment, educational deficits, and psychological challenges, profoundly impacting the children (Murray et al.; Luk et al.; Herreros-Fraile et al.). On top of the single effects, several researchers have referred the vicious cycle of parental incarceration as the inter-generational effects of parental incarceration, driving teen-theft, drug use, and other crime involvements (Dobbie et al.; Herreros-Fraile et al.). However, there is a noticeable gap in defining the vicious cycle of incarceration on children in the context of Liangshan. This paper, therefore, analyzes preceding studies, analyzes the intergenerational impact of each single effects of parental incarceration on children in Liangshan, and defines a Liangshan-based cyclical impact of parental incarceration on Liangshan’s children.