About half of all incarcerated people are parents.
The harm doesn’t stop at the prison gate; it lands on children.New research confirms parental incarceration damages behavior, education, health, and economic stability.
This isn’t justice. It’s state-funded harm.
While working on my capstone proposal, I ran into a research journal that perfectly captures the harms of parental incarceration. I couldn’t wait to share it, because I found myself nodding the entire time I was reading it.
And then it hit me; that’s exactly the problem. It’s too accurate. We can’t keep doing this to children anymore.
It’s state-funded abuse.
No Longer a Rare Event
Sadly, parental incarceration is no longer a rare event according to Turney & Goodsell.
Due largely to the failed “Tough on Crime” policies that began in the 1970’s, mental institutions closed and politicians saw an opportunity for a political scapegoat (crime). It became an opportunity to ship off the constituents they didn’t want to serve, placing them in prisons.
Check out From Asylum to Prison: Deinstitutionalization and the Rise of Mass Incarceration after 1945 (Justice, Power, and Politics) for more on that.
We have politicians that claim to care about families while they implement policies that tear them apart, creating a revolving door for unaddressed trauma.
Impacts on Children
About half of all inmates have a child. And typically, mass incarceration policies target the poor and disadvantaged.
That leaves a lot of room for harm.
Here’s just a few of the awful impacts of parental incarceration:
- Increases families’ economic hardship
- Incarcerated individuals can no longer support their families; instead their families have to pay outrageous phone and commissary prices
- Stigma prevents people from working or finding housing
- Increases the likelihood that parents will separate or divorce
- Impairs mental health of parents and children
Overall, parental incarceration is more likely to lead to poor outcomes for children through these combined mechanisms.
The System is Failing Children
Somehow, bad actors in the system have tricked rural constituents into believing lies not at all based on data; into thinking most people deserve to have their lives torn apart for non-violent crimes. They’ve some how tricked people into believing their harsh punishments are helping the community when they’re actually tearing it down and perpetuating cycles of poverty.
Why? No recordings, no proof of what’s really happening in the courtroom if you aren’t sitting there.
These individuals also fail to remind their constituents that most of the people they mass incarcerate WILL have to return to their communities, and by incarcerating them, they’re making it harder for them to reintegrate, find a job, and secure housing.
I have to imagine that these individuals who support punitive policies have never truly experienced the system, otherwise it would be a different tune entirely. Once it happens to you, it’s always a different story.
We have to start looking at the big picture. Prosecutors and judges need to be captured on video and audio footage at hearings.
States should be required to disclose the dollar value of households needlessly destroyed by the criminal justice system rather than diverted each year.
We need radical honesty and accountability from our elected public officials.
Because only then can we end punitive court practices devastating the lives of children and ultimately, communities.
