‘It’s almost every case': The impact of having a parent in prison
Memphis police officer Amber Campos’ parents both struggled with addiction, and her father spent time in prison. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian)
Growing up, Amber Campos’ parents were both in the throes of drug addiction.
She often had to make sure they didn’t choke in their sleep or crash while driving high when she was in the car.
Her father, who later died of an overdose, spent time incarcerated while she was a child, as did her younger brother.
A Saturday night patrol with a Memphis police officer
Campos hasn’t followed in her parents’ footsteps. After spending 20 years in administration with the Santa Ana Police Department in California, she joined the Memphis Police Department, where she’s been an officer for more than two years.
“For me, not going in that direction, from a young age, I had a really solid awareness that is not how I want to live my life,” she said. “That’s not the life for me.”
Not everyone is like Campos, though, and research shows that having an incarcerated parent can make a person more likely to engage in criminal activity themselves.
This trend has been underscored in recent high-profile cases in Memphis.
Cleotha Abston, who pleaded guilty to the murder of Eliza Fletcher, is the son of a convicted murderer. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian file)
Cleotha Abston pleaded guilty in October to the 2022 murder of Eliza Fletcher; Abston’s father was convicted of murder in 2010 and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
Eliza Fletcher’s family, Mulroy speak out as Abston pleads guilty
Abston and his father share the same name. They also shared the same defense attorney.
The 17-year-old suspect accused of participating in an April shootout that killed Memphis police officer Joseph “Rusty” McKinney is also the child of an incarcerated father, who also was convicted of murder as a teenager.
The father was charged with murder when he was 17 and was sentenced to life in prison in 2009 at age 19. The son, who’s also the suspect in McKinney’s case and faces a host of charges, including second-degree murder, awaits a decision on whether or not he will be transferred from juvenile to adult court.
The scope of the issue
Around 2.7 million American children have experienced parental incarceration at some point in their lives, according to the National Institute of Justice in 2017. In Tennessee, it’s estimated that at least one in 10 children have experienced it.
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Aarron Fleming
Aarron Fleming covers Memphis and Shelby County’s court system and is a member of The Daily Memphian’s public safety reporting team. He formerly covered education and earned his B.A. in journalism from the University of Memphis.
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