Prisoners’ Perceptions of Father-Child Relationships and Social Support Cheryl Swanson & Chang-Bae Lee & Frank A. Sansone & Kimberly M. Tatum Received: 23 March 2011 /Accepted: 23 June 2011 / Published online: 14 July 2011 # Southern Criminal Justice Association 2011 Abstract Incarcerated fathers (N =185) in a maximum security prison were interviewed about their relationship with their children and their perceptions of social support. The OLS regression on social support included the inmates’ perception of the father-child relationship and other factors (demographic, sentence, child-related, and program participation). Results indicate the fathers’ perception of the relationship with their children made a positive contribution to their appraisal of social support from all sources. “Other” program participation and being African American were related to the fathers’ perception of social support from others. Recommendations include using social support strategies in pre-release and post- release programs. Keywords Social support . Father-child relationship . Inmate fathers . Reentry support Introduction Social support is identified by criminologists and other social scientists as playing an important role in crime prevention and desistance (Cullen, 1994; Braithwaite, 1989; Bales & Mears, 2008; Naser & La Vigne, 2006). With reentry at the top of the agenda among many state departments of corrections, there is renewed interest by researchers and practitioners on the role of social support from family, the Am J Crim Just (2012) 37:338–355 DOI 10.1007/s12103-011-9132-4 C. Swanson : C.-B. Lee (*) : F. A. Sansone : K. M. Tatum School of Justice Studies and Social Work, University of West Florida, 11000 University Parkway, Pensacola, FL 32514, USA e-mail: clee@uwf.edu C. Swanson e-mail: cswanson@uwf.edu F. A. Sansone e-mail: fsansone@uwf.edu K. M. Tatum e-mail: ktatum@uwf.edu