Children and Families: About the Project
The Issue
The growth in the number of men and women incarcerated in the United States over the past 20 years has affected an extraordinary number of children and families. The number of minor children with a parent incarcerated in state or federal prison rose by more than 761,000 from 1991 to 2007.1 In 2007, an estimated 809,800 state and federal prisoners were parents to over 1.7 million minor children.2 Research has indicated that on any given day more than 7 million children may have a parent in prison or jail, or under parole or probation supervision.3
On both the state and local level, corrections agencies (responsible for overseeing people sentenced to jail, prison, or community supervision) and human services agencies (responsible for protecting and serving children and families) have a shared interest in this trend. Yet few corrections and human services agencies have effectively collaborated to serve incarcerated parents and their families on a systemwide basis. In fact, these two systems often find themselves working at cross purposes, even when they concentrate their services and resources on the same families and communities.
The Response
The Justice Center is developing materials policymakers and practitioners can use to support family members during an individual’s period of incarceration and subsequent transition into the community. Included in these materials is a collaboration tool that corrections and human services partnerships can use to assess their collaborative efforts in the area of reentry. A web-based version of the tool as well as an expanded print-based version of the tool will be available. The print-based version will include challenges faced by three different jurisdictions (AZ, MI, and TX) when they tried to expand cross-agency collaboration, and the steps that they took to address these challenges.
The Justice Center is also developing a federal action plan to raise awareness among members of Congress and federal government officials about the needs of children with incarcerated parents and to encourage these policymakers to enact legislation that will improve child wellbeing. The action plan will highlight a number of issues affecting children of incarcerated parents and contain policy options and recommendations for addressing each.
To learn more about the Justice Center’s tools and publications, click here.
Contact:
Shawn Rogers
Policy Analyst
Council of State Governments Justice Center
srogers@csg.org
tel: (212) 482-2320
fax: (212) 482-2344
1 Lauren E. Glaze and Laura M. Maruschak, Parents in Prison and Their Minor Children, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, NCJ 222984 (Washington D.C., U.S. Department of Justice, August 2008).
2 Ibid.
3 ----------, 1996 Survey of Inmates in Local Jails, 1997 Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities, 2001 Annual Survey of Jails, and 2001 National Prisoners Statistics Program (presented at the National Center for Children and Families, Washington, D.C., October 31, 2002).