Abstract:
An estimated 94,000 children in Louisiana have a parent
who has experienced jail time. Nationally, the number of
children with an incarcerated parent grew from 500,000 in 1980
to 2.5 million in 2012. The incredible growth in these figures
runs parallel to the growth of mass imprisonment in the United
States, which has had the highest incarceration rate in the world
for over a decade. Children with incarcerated parents are at
high risk of a number of negative outcomes such as poverty,
mental health and behavioral problems, engagement with the
foster care system, homelessness, and, often, their own
incarceration. Parental incarceration touches the lives of far too
many individuals throughout Louisiana, including myself. Not
all children with an incarcerated parent face the same outcomes,
but all of us experience the trauma of an absent parent. And
with that, too many children enter the cycle of incarceration.
