Criminal Justice: Does Family Visiting Help or Harm Kids?

In response to a recent guest post here from staff at the Coalition for Juvenile Justice entitled, "Scared Straight: Don't Believe the Hype (Facts from CJJ)," a juvenile justice professional* emailed me the following:
I would be interested in knowing your opinion of children visiting their parents in prison, neo-natal nurseries in prisons, etc. I have very mixed feelings about this.
When speaking to at-risk middle schoolers about juvenile corrections, I am most often asked, "How many visitors can you have?" "What is the food like?" and "Do you know my /sister/brother/uncle/aunt?"  I see a great risk of younger kids becoming desensitized to incarceration. 

In other words, if a program like "Scared Straight," which deliberately exposes teens in trouble to adult prisoners and -- as research has shown in the post mentioned above -- it can make participants more likely to commit new crimes, then maybe that's because the experience doesn't scare them "straight" in the long run, but normalizes prison and reduces its effectiveness as a deterrent. So ... does the same thing apply to young family members who visit their incarcerated relatives? 
I've long understood that it was good practice for adults and juveniles in detention, jail, or prison to maintain contact with their loved ones, but what does the research say? Does it improve outcomes for people (including teens) who are incarcerated? 
And how does it impact children and teens who visit relatives? 
Drop me an email, leave a comment, or join the discussion on LinkedIn (you don't have to be a member to see the discussion, though you need to join if you want to comment) -- I'll post what I learn. 
 

UPDATE Feb 22, 2011 (from Ryan Shanahan of the Vera Institute's comments below): "The impact of incarceration on children can be harsh, but studies show that visitation and other forms of contact with the incarcerated parent—such as letter writing or phone calls—can help strengthen children’s ability to cope. Parke and Stewart (2001) provide a good overview of the ways visitation can mitigate some of the negative impacts of incarceration. They found that visiting can calm children’s fears and that any negative effects were relatively short-term."

 
*In accord with the social media policy of this person's employer, s/he will have to remain anonymous.
Photo: James Mitchell; question mark added by author.