IStock Photo 4302221 © Rhienna Cutler

According to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1 in 43.19 children under the age of 18 has a parent in prison.

At mid-year, 2008, there were more than 1.6 million people in state or federal prison in the United States, according to the latest report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. This is a slight increase from the 1,518,535 people incarcerated at the same point in 2007 (PDF). An additional 785,556 were held in local jails.

State and federal inmates were surveyed in 2004 in order to gather information on how many parents were behind bars. Based upon these survey results, coupled with the 2007 population numbers, the Bureau of Justice Statistics estimated that as of June 30, 2007, 809,800 parents were in prison. Of all state and federal prisoners, about 1 in 1.8(56%) are parents of children under 18. These inmates were estimated to have 1,706,600 minor children.

The agency also looked at the breakdown in the parent population both by gender and over time, and there the results are particularly dramatic. The number of mothers in prison has increased 122% since 1991 while the number of fathers incarcerated has increased by 76%. Nearly 66,000 mothers were jailed in the summer of 2007, compared to approximately 744,000 fathers. Among children of state and federal inmates of both genders, half (1 in 2) were under the age of 10.

Children with parents in prison face many difficult challenges. As the prison rolls increase, so do the number of children forced to cope with the emotional and financial upheaval that often accompanies parental incarceration. The most pressing problem is who will care for them in their parent’s absence. Among state inmates, fathers most often listed the child’s mother as the current caretaker, while 65% of mothers listed a grandmother or other relative. Mothers were five times more likely than fathers to report their children were being cared for by an institution, agency, or foster home.

About half the state inmates of both genders reported having been the primary financial support for minor children prior to incarceration, and of those who supported their children, 80% reported being employed in the month before they were arrested.

Aside from the often profound change in their home lives and financial circumstances, children of prisoners often face a gut-wrenching separation. Many prisons facilitate family visits, but there are often barriers to visitation, including the emotional toll on the child and the costs and logistics of travel. As a result, not all prisoners see their children very often or at all. In federal prisons, just 1 in 6.8 inmates receive a visit at least every month from their children and 1 in 2.24 get no visits at all. In state prisons, only 1 in 8 inmates get a monthly visit and 1 in 1.71 (59%) never have a visit from their child at all.

Letters are a way to maintain some contact, but just 1 in 4.31 state prisoners correspond through the mail with their children and 1 in 3.23 federal inmates. Often prisoners have no contact at all with their children. The odds a federal prisoner with children will have no contact with them are 1 in 11.36. For state prisoners the odds jump to 1 in 4.67.

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