Having a Parent Behind Bars. The Costs are Staggering for Both Children and States
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Jamaill never knew his mother. When he was 1, his father was incarcerated, and Jamaill got to know him largely through letters and phone calls. Twice a year, he would trek from Brooklyn to an upstate New York prison to visit — a trip that involved a plane ride, a long drive and an overnight stay in a motel.
Now, the 10th-grader’s father has been transferred to another prison even farther away. So they’ll stay in touch with “televisits,” video-conferenced meetings. Jamaill doesn’t think it should be so hard for kids to see their imprisoned parents. And that’s what he told New York state legislators in March.
“Incarcerated parents need to be closer to home,” said Jamaill, 15, who lives with his grandmother and doesn’t want his last name used because he doesn’t want to further stigmatize his father. “Some people have to drive nine, 10 hours to see their parents — and then only have 30 minutes to talk to them.”
Many states are beginning to look at a growing body of research that shows that having a parent behind bars can have a destabilizing effect on an estimated 1.7 million children like Jamaill. The separation can have costly emotional and social consequences, such as trauma and trouble in schools, homelessness, and bigger welfare and foster care rolls.
Some states are encouraging greater contact between the children and their parents by using new technology such as televisiting, or by placing parents in the closest correctional facility. And some are trying to intervene when a parent is charged, tried and convicted of a crime to provide emotional support and a stable home for the children.
In New York, for example, the Senate’s corrections committee advanced a bill in March that would create a pilot program that places sentenced parents in the nearest jail or prison.
The federal government allows states to use funding from the National Family Caregiver Support Program to provide grandparents and other elderly relatives who care for the children with services such as counseling. Washington, for example, has a statewide network of “kinship navigators” that connects families and extended relatives with legal services, health care and parenting classes.
Some states also are looking at ways to better reconnect children with their parents after they leave jail or prison, and to help ease the parents back into society to provide a more stable family life for their children.
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