Adolescents with Incarcerated Parents
~ By Colette
In 2006 when we published our issue, good data about the number of youth with a parent in prison was sparse. I was glad last August when the U.S. Department of Justice released new data in the special report “Parents in Prison and Their Minor Children.” While the whole report is full of compelling data, there are a few key points that I feel should be highlighted:
- 2.3% of U.S. youth under the age of 18 have a parent in prison. That translates to over 2 in every 100 youth, or 1,706,600 youth overall.
- Between 1991 and the middle of 2007, the number of children with an incarcerated parent increased by 80%.
- At the time of the survey, almost half of the children with a parent in prison were over age 10.
- More than one third of the children with a parent in prison will reach age 18 while their parent is incarcerated.
- About half of the incarcerated parents lived with their children either in the month before their arrest or just prior to incarceration.
- Additionally, over half of the incarcerated parents had provided the primary financial support for their children.
Effects on Youth
As is clear from these statistics, many youth experience parental incarceration and it can be a severe and traumatic disruption to their lives. Mary, in our online youth story, talks about the financial burden placed on her family when her father goes to jail. She writes:
“After my father went to jail, my mother started looking for a job. Now she works from 1 a.m. until 7 a.m. at a factory. Friday mornings she comes home at 8 a.m., and then at 10, she has to go to work at a hair salon so she just sleeps two hours…”
Beyond her mother’s increased absence from her home, Mary also struggles to cope with her father’s absence: “Today, while my father is passing through this (being in jail), I am in school trying to concentrate on what the teacher is saying and trying to show a happy face. It’s hard…”
I mention this in the blog, because this month’s free feature article is “Providing Support to Adolescent Children with Incarcerated Parents” by Ann Adalist-Estrin. In this article, Ms. Adalist-Estrin offers practical strategies for supporting youth with an incarcerated parent. She notes that “teachers, counselors, and others in the community play a powerful supporting role” in buffering youth who are experiencing parental incarceration.
In our youth story, Mary accentuates this need for support when she writes: “I have promised myself to keep being a good student and to not make my father disappointed in me. But sometimes I feel like quitting everything and not trying that hard anymore.”
However, it isn’t just Mary – or any individual youth – who needs support during this time. Parents and caregivers also need help so they can support their children. For example, Mary writes that: “My mother is a great person and strong too. But now that she’s the one who’s in charge of this family, sometimes the situation is too much stress for her, and she screams a lot and fights with us.”
As Ms. Adalist-Estrin notes, “Responding to the needs of these youth is a challenge to youth-serving agencies and programs. However, many can and will be able to identify the needs and provide appropriate services. Children of incarcerated parents … need communities that will promise to support them as they journey into adulthood.”
If you are new to these statistics and the support that children with incarcerated parents need, I hope these resources (the statistics from the DOJ report, this month’s free article, and Mary’s story) are useful. If you’ve worked with youth coping with parental incarceration, please leave a comment and let us know what has been effective for you.
© 2011 Integrated Research Services, Inc. Website design by
February 14th, 2009 at 7:43 am
I have custody of my 4 nieces and nephews; oldest girl is 13, oldest boy is 12, youngest girl is 9, and the youngest boy is 7. I have had the children a little over 5 years due to both parents being incarcerated. While the younger two know about their parents, I feel they were too young to really understand and they both look at my husband and I as parents. The older two were very close with thier parents and we struggled to make things okay for them. The oldest girl has really come to terms with everything and is excelling at school, behavior, etc. On the other hand, the 12 year old boy has my husband and I at wits end. While his grades are well above par and, for the most part, his manners are impecable he continues to show signs of serious behavioral problems. When in third grade he called DFACS on my husband and I claiming my husband shot him and other claims not as serious, while just as ridiculous. The claims were considered unjustified after the investigation was complete. Soon after I became pregnant and had a difficult pregnancy, often spending nights at the hospital. Every hospital visit was finished with news that Ty was being disrespectful or that he had a temper. Things got better like they always do with his behavior. However, in 5th grade Ty tried to talk a classmate into poisoning his teacher’s iced tea because he had a 93 on his progress report. All of his grades were posted on the paper and he was mad that I was going to see that he had gotten a 80 and 73 throughout the quarter and did not show them to me. That same boy my nephew tried to coerce into harming the teacher came forth and also told the principal about my nephews foiled plot to make a bomb at school. My nephew is very intelligent and had the idea that if he could get each of his friends to bring a “part” then he would not be the only one….helping his odds as to whether he’d get caught. My husband and I were extremely upset and concerned so we brought him to a psychologist. She, as we have known all along, came up with the fact that my nephew refuses to accept responsibility and that he expects everything while victimizing himself. While she was talking to me, I got cold chills: My nephew is EXACTLY like his mother in that sense. And where is his mother???? In and out of jail for the last 5 years, talking to her children when incarcerated and forgetting about them the moment the gates open to let her out. I don’t want my nephew in prison…he is SO talented and bright and could have an awesome future. But, as sick as this may seem to people, there is little hope for him until I can find some way to make him understand the importance of accepting respsonsibility and what our actions can do to affect not only the people around us, but ourselves. If you have any information to help me it would be greatly appreciated. I don’t feel like i am dealing with a child who needs extreme intervention. just a BIG wake up call
May 18th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
I have worked with incarcerated parents teaching a parenting, life and reunification skills programs with enhanced visitation for children to smooth the transition involved in reentry for nearly 18 years. I have seen children’s behavior change – i.e., better performance in school, at home, all around once they are able to connect with their parents. It’s amazing how so many people want to keep these children away from their parents and make the burden more difficult.While nothing works in ALL cases – in many, having that connection with the incarcerated parent is what is needed to help smooth things over. Separation is the most difficult part of the entire ordeal – and if we want the offender to have a better chance of successfully bridging the reentry bridge – family is the first line of defense. I have written a book “After the Bungy Jump . . . There’s Still A Lot of Jerking Goin’ On” which details a mother’s 8 years of incarceration and how it affects her and the family she left behind. I am preparing to move into the production stage of a feature length documentary concerning the effects of incarceration on children, families and communities left behind, look at the wonderful work that is already being done in this country and call for societal will to change towards this often forgotten group. Society must begin to see that together we can open up more services that will support a person coming out of the system and their family and help to keep them together. Upon reunification, there is a shock that occurs for not only the person returning to society but for the family as well. Everyone has changed and unless everyone understands and prepares for that inevitability – people think that the reunification is not working. Reunification is a process – not an event. The separation has been for a long period of time it will usually take a long period for everyone to readjust. It can happen.
May 19th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Doris, Thank you for sharing your experiences. The importance of helping youth stay connected with their incarcerated parents has been voiced by everyone whom I’ve talked to about this issue. It is also part of the Children of Incarcerated Parents Bill of Rights (“I have the right to speak with, see, and touch my parent”). I also appreciated your comments about reunification being a process, not an event.
Good luck with the documentary.
February 28th, 2010 at 9:02 am
There are few resources availible for children of the incacerated, there are few resources for the incarcerated parent and almost no resources for the parent who in an instant become a single parent and more often than not becomes soley responsible for everything, everyone in their world that was shared responsibility a few moments before and now as added responsibility of trying to deal & survive their own loss while at the same time trying to make sure they are making the right decisions for the children, so that they will do more than survive, and become the self actualized human beings you had always hoped for them with an added insight to life that will allow them to reach out with a kindness and understanding to others they may need thier very specfic expereince to draw from. The parent left becomes responsible for other family members that maybe dependent, maintaing realtionship for the children with extendded family members if possible in hopes that they do not turn and walk away and the list goes on. Maintaing, supporting, emotionaly & finicially the relationship with the incarcerated parent and finding and defininf the realtionship with the incarcerated spouse. So much more than one over flowing plate and with the most important job ever given anyone, to raise healthly, happy, productive children into adults that have something to offer themselves and others.The one last plate they carry until, if they are lucky ,they learn not too is the stamiga and shame our society serves regularly to the familes of the incarcerated.